Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive96

Lester Coleman

Lester Coleman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Here is the disputed revisions: 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lester_Coleman&diff=387364817&oldid=386456789 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lester_Coleman&diff=next&oldid=387364817

The source is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article:

Martz, Ron. "CONSPIRACY THEORIES: Outlandish claims can hit close to home." Atlanta Journal-Constitution. April 30, 2000. C5.

All sentences supporting my quotations are stated in the citation.

The other party said: "Weakly cited conspiracy claims, BLP requires srtonger supports for such claims." (edit summary removing the article) and
"Fact and true say to me that the content is nothing like that, please consider BLP and that such conspiracy additions are extremely contentious and please provide stronger claims for such additions, thanks." (talk page)

The author of the article, an AJC employee named Ron Martz, himself had a dispute with Coleman and became opposed to him in a lawsuit. But the AJC published this, and it was not self-published. I argue that anything that Martz states as fact needs to be presumed as true.

Wikipedia:BLP#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material says that "Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that is unsourced or poorly sourced; that is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see No original research); that relies on self-published sources, unless written by the subject of the BLP (see below); or that relies on sources that fail in some other way to comply with Verifiability." - The AJC article is not a self-published source, and the AJC itself is a reliable source.

I am in the process of sending the full copy of the article to the other party. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:46, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• - Comment - This report is poorly laid out, would the reporter please clearly lay out his desired content additions and the citations he desires to support them with. Off2riorob (talk) 18:58, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment - I am a Wikipedia editor, not a "reporter."
  • Anyway: These are the disputed sentences, and these are the sentences from the AJC article that support my statements.
  • Wikipedia sentence: "Conspiracy theories alleging that the federal convictions of Lester Coleman were an effort to silence him and to hide the truth about Pan Am Flight 103 circulated around the internet."
    • AJC article Sentence: "Coleman has since been convicted of federal charges of perjury and state charges of forgery. But the conspiracy theory lives on on the Web --- the convictions just another part of the government's effort to keep him quiet and hide the real truth about Pan Am 103."
  • Wikipedia sentence: "In the 1980s Lester Coleman frequently traveled through Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East and had a Lebanese wife. He worked as a journalist, primarily in television. He frequently used the pseudonym "Collin Knox.""
    • AJC article Sentence: "Coleman, an American, seemed a good candidate. He had a Lebanese wife and had traveled widely in that country and in other parts of the Middle East." and "byline "Collin Knox," a pseudonym frequently used by Coleman."
  • Wikipedia sentence: "The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) office in Cyprus sued the publisher of Coleman's book. A court in London decided in favor of the DEA office, and the publisher placed a public apology and destroyed the remaining copies of the book."
    • AJC article Sentence: "Coleman's primary target in the book, the head of the DEA office in Cyprus, successfully sued the British publisher and Coleman for libel in a London court. The publisher had to offer a public apology and destroy all remaining copies of the book."
  • Plus I found a New York Magazine article talking about Coleman's alias
    • New York Magazine. August 31, 1992. Page 34.
  • WhisperToMe (talk) 19:05, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Also , you say, the author of the article was in dispute with the subject of the BLP and was against him in a lawsuit, this is clearly an opponent of the subject and as such likely extremely opinionated, are the contentious claims supported in other WP:RS? Off2riorob (talk) 19:03, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

1. Firstly, the New York Magazine talks about Coleman's alias, as I state above.

2. Many reliable sources have points of view. The question is whether claims are properly vetted and whether factual statements are likely to be true. The AJC vets its articles, and the AJC can be trusted to allow for factual claims.

3. I'll see if I can gather more sources that discuss the particular aspects of Coleman. The problem is with "self-published" articles from "opponents of the subject."

WhisperToMe (talk) 19:05, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• - Please keep your comment concise so as to focus on the actual issue, this is not a replacement for the talkpage, present your desired additions and the supporting citation and allow users to have a look at t. The thread is already long and fluffy. Off2riorob (talk) 19:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
  • The actual issue has been clearly addressed. I do treat the Noticeboard as a talk page, and I believe it should be treated as such. I believe that my comments have been adequately presented.
  • WhisperToMe (talk) 19:27, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
• This source talks about the lawsuit:
• "James helps arrange return of fugitive from Europe." Associated Press at the Times Daily. Friday October 25, 1996. 9 of 16.
• This says that Michael Hurley, the head of the DEA in Cyprus, sued the publishers in court and got a settlement, and the settlement papers said that the remaining copies of the book would be destroyed. The British publishers then said that the accusations were untrue.
• WhisperToMe (talk) 19:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

So? I don't get it, all the claims are week and involved and as such dubious to assert anything in a BLP. The publshers of coleman book were allegedly sued, perhaps that would sit better in an article about the book than a BLP article. Off2riorob (talk) 20:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

"Allegedly" sued? Either they were sued or they were not. In this case, they were sued. They settled out of court. There is no debate about this.

Trial of the Octopus (book) does not yet exist. So either we make an article about the book, or the content about the book exists entirely in Coleman's article. Even if there is a separate article, it is still okay to summarize the contents, for completeness.

Would you mind explaining why you think these claims are "dubious" or why you think the "claims are week"? I do not see any supporting evidence from your posts to explain why you believe this to be the case about reliably published sources.

To say that the publisher was sued is a factual statement that cannot be disputed. A record of the lawsuit would exist. A record of the settlement would exist.

Also I don't see how statements like "Coleman has a Lebanese wife" or "Coleman frequently used this alias" would be disputed.

WhisperToMe (talk) 21:49, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, settling out of court usually infers no guilt and has privacy issues. As for your alias claim (you allegedly claim frequently used) is all contentious and also weakly claimed in a BLP. Although some users like conspiracy related issues sometimes less is more and we have worked hard to keep such weakly claimed issues out of this BLP and imo that is reflective of wikipedia's guidelines and policies as regards the biographies of of living people. Off2riorob (talk) 21:53, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

While settling out of claim by law technically infers no guilt, Wikipedia can report on what happens as part of the settlement, and Wikipedia can report on what the settlement means, as interpreted by secondary sources and in some cases primary sources. Usually terms of the settlement are disclosed. In this case the publishers issued a statement saying the book's contents were false and destroyed the remaining copies of the book. Ron Martz, the AJC employee who was named in Coleman's book, considered the outcome to be a defeat for the book's publishers, and it is okay for Wikipedia to say "Ron Martz of the AJC said that XXX "lost"."

"As for your alias claim (you allegedly claim frequently used) is all contensions and also weakly claimed in a BLP." - If we have two people, one published by the AJC and one published by the NYT, saying that Coleman used that alias, and Coleman did not say himself that he did not use this alias, shouldn't that be strong enough?

Again, why is it weakly cited? How about this: What are your criteria for a "strong" citation. What are you looking for in a citation? How does this match with the expectations of WP:BLP? Which parts of WP:BLP are you referring to as evidence?

WhisperToMe (talk) 21:59, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

This is part of the clear issue as regards BLP, its all weakly claimed from involved people, we are not here to write expose content, for BLP articles especially regarding contentious content we are looking for the strongest quality of citations and also the content should really be widely available we are not here to add disputed difficult to assess involved commentary, this whole issue is clearly central to our BLP policy. Off2riorob (talk) 22:14, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

"the strongest quality of citations" - What are they? I would like to know your views on that.

"its all weakly claimed from involved people" - It's possible to have something strongly claimed from an involved person, provided that it is published in a secondary source, and one properly interprets and restates what was said by that involved person in a neutral manner. See the fourth bullet point.

"we are not here to write expose content" (meaning "exposé") - But it's not original research, and this stuff is not self-published. Everything has been published in reliable sources.

What Wikipedia:BLP#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material defines as "poorly" (or weakly) sourced would be "conjectural interpretation of a source" or content from self-published sources not from the author, or "sources that fail in some other way to comply with Verifiability" - So it would help to explain why it would fail to comply with WP:V

WhisperToMe (talk) 22:30, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

As I said, your discussion here is awful broad . There are other discussions pages and policy pages for your other thoughts as regards verifiability and what is contentious discussions. My thoughts are irrelevant, we already have strong BLP policy in regards to this issue. Off2riorob (talk) 22:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

But people do use interpretations when judging what a policy means, so it is helpful to have people explain what they believe a policy states. It can help clear up any misunderstandings. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:17, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

First a disclosure: I have a longstanding interest in this article, which has repeatedly been disrupted by socks attempting to insert spurious content. I don't believe that that is happening here, I'm just clarifying that I'm an involved editor. Now to the point: I believe that the Martz article should be usable, but because it is substantially about the role of Martz himself, any statement based on it needs to be explicitly attributed to Martz. In other words, we can't say X is true, but rather according to Martz, X is true. Looie496 (talk) 23:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

On many instances, I agree with using "according to Martz, X is true," especially when Coleman and Martz make statements that directly contradict each other. I.E. "Coleman says X," "Martz says Y," or when Mertz makes an interpretive/opinion (not a factual) statement, I.E. instead of "Coleman is a bad boy who needs a spanking," it should be "Martz says Coleman is a bad boy who needs a spanking" (that wasn't actually said in the source; I'm just using it as an example :) )

In this particular case, there is no need to say that "Martz says the publisher destroyed copies of the books." The Associated Press states that the settlement papers said that the remaining copies were destroyed.

However it is correct to say "Martz said that the British publishers "lost" the case" because they did settle.

We can say "Martz said that in the 1980s Lester Coleman frequently traveled through Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East" - That can be revised if we find other people saying the same things and/or if Coleman says this himself.

We can say "Martz said that he worked as a journalist, primarily in television, and that he frequently used the pseudonym "Collin Knox."" - Again that can be revised if we find other people saying the same things and/or if Coleman says this himself.

We do not need to say "Martz said that Coleman had a Lebanese wife.

WhisperToMe (talk) 23:16, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Matz is like an enemy of Coleman and his wekly cited claims and comments about coleman are far from NPOV and should not be added at all, please post your your desired addition and the citations that support it here so we can have a good look at it. Off2riorob (talk) 17:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

We are supposed to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly about any subject, BLP or not. What BLP means is that we have to be more careful about sourcing and balance. We know Martz was against Coleman, so all it means is that we evaluate what he said and appropriately post what Martz. Because it is not self published, we can use what Martz said. The AJC signed off on what Metz said, so just because Martz was an enemy doesn't mean his AJC-vetted statements are unreliable. Sources do not have to be neutral. They have to be reliable. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:56, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

This is what you posted...

Conspiracy theories alleging that the federal convictions of Lester Coleman were an effort to silence him and to hide the truth about Pan Am Flight 103 circulated around the internet.<ref name="MartzRon">Martz, Ron. "CONSPIRACY THEORIES: Outlandish claims can hit close to home." Atlanta Journal-Constitution. April 30, 2000. C5. Retrieved on September 26, 2010. "Coleman, an American, seemed a good candidate. He had a Lebanese wife and had traveled widely in that country and in other parts of the Middle East." and "byline "Collin Knox," a pseudonym frequently used by Coleman." and "Coleman has since been convicted of federal charges of perjury and state charges of forgery. But the conspiracy theory lives on on the Web --- the convictions just another part of the government's effort to keep him quiet and hide the real truth about Pan Am 103." and "Coleman's primary target in the book, the head of the DEA office in Cyprus, successfully sued the British publisher and Coleman for libel in a London court. The publisher had to offer a public apology and destroy all remaining copies of the book."

In the 1980s Lester Coleman frequently traveled through Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East and had a Lebanese wife. He worked as a journalist, primarily in television. He frequently used the pseudonym "Collin Knox."<ref name="MartzRon"/>

The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) office in Cyprus sued the publisher of Coleman's book. A court in London decided in favor of the DEA office, and the publisher placed a public apology and destroyed the remaining copies of the book.<ref name="MartzRon"/>

The above was already linked above. It's far easier to link to a diff. We can see the diffs for ourselves. Again, the diffs are here and here WhisperToMe (talk) 23:56, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

comments

to me it just looks like conspiracy claims, attempt to associate Coleman with a alias and unconfirmed allegations from an opponent of Colemans, and some claims about his book that actually leave more questions than answers. If Coleman frequently traveled in Lebanon in the 1980, what did he do there, what is the relevance of the claimed alias, what evidence cited it there og activities he carried out with this secret identity? if we added every weakly claimed alias for Coleman we would have nothing but conspiracy, which imo is all this content adds to the article. This content does nothing apart from allege and smear a living person with the claims of someone who took legal action against Coleman, what are the details of this legal case, why was it in London, are there and independant reports of this case, perhaps in British papers as it allegedly happened there. Off2riorob (talk) 17:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

1. Your questions do not weaken the integrity of the Wikipedia statements and do not cast doubt on them:

2. "If Coleman frequently traveled in Lebanon in the 1980, what did he do there" - I'm sure someone else explained what he did. How is it negative that Joe frequently traveled in somewhereland in the 1980s? If it just says he traveled in somewhereland, why do we have to explain it? If you want to know more, find more sources and add to it.

3. "what evidence cited it there og activities he carried out with this secret identity?" - I don't understand that sentence. Please reword it.

4. "what is the relevance of the claimed alias" - He published works in journalistic publication under that alias. He didn't just adopt an alias for fun and use it at Christmas parties. If his alias wasn't relevant, the sources (in this case journalists who have less than favorable opinions of Coleman, and whose statements were published by reliable sources) wouldn't be referring to it.

5. "This content does nothing apart from allege and smear a living person with the claims of someone who took legal action against Coleman," That is incorrect. It factually states real facts in a neutral tone. Do not equate properly balanced neutral and negative information with a "smear." You have to follow what the sources say about someone. If sources point to X information, you have to state it so. WP:Undue weight clearly states that we must use sources to apportion what is said about a subject.

6. "what are the details of this legal case, why was it in London, are there and independant reports of this case, perhaps in British papers as it allegedly happened there."

a. Because the case was filed in London against a British publisher. How does this negatively affect the content?

b. We already have the Associated Press report I posted above that said the case ended in a settlement.

c. Want more information? Find more information.

You are using the word "weak" without explaining why it is weak. If I say it is a "strong" citation, and I am doing so with the support of WP:BLP as explained in the policy, that neutralizes your argument. WP:BLP makes it clear that strong citations are secondary sources from reliable publishers. While the Metz article in some ways is a primary source (an involved person wrote it), it is also in some ways a secondary source (Metz is an employee of the newspaper who published his article, and was an employee of that very newspaper!!!) - Not only is the Metz citation strong, I have other news articles that are also strong.

You have to explain your rationale. You can't just say "BLP is clear." I see a lack of explanation in your posts and that does not help me find a solution, nor does it help the credibility of your opposition.

I am going to file an RFC if no third opinion comes in. I am surprised that no other users have commented on this matter. I am confident that a revised version of the paragraph that I posted would pass BLP. I already listed it at Wikipedia:Third_opinion#Active_disagreements

WhisperToMe (talk) 23:56, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Turns out User:Looie496 already provided a third opinion in favor of using the Metz source, with clarifications. So, two out of three support using Metz, as per WP:BLP. WhisperToMe (talk) 00:13, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Alright, would someone mind looking at User:WhisperToMe/Coleman? This page is a workshop for the revised paragraphs that use User:Looie496's suggestions and use multiple sources. I also began to expand on other points made from other sources. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:40, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

In the absence of any further commentary, if three days pass from the timestamp I will integrate the content in to the Coleman article. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:30, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

There is no time limit and I don't see as you have made a case that this disputed content is of any clear informative value at all. It is still worthless conspiracy content and should not be added to a BLP. Your desire to add your weakly claimed conspiracy content allows others to add their opinions and POV and weak claims also. Off2riorob (talk) 19:24, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I established a time limit so nobody can accuse me of trying to buck consensus/sneakily pass moves. It is 100% acceptable to impose time limits, as once no objections are raised in a reasonable amount of time, one can safely assume that no objections exist.

This is now going to be an RFC. There is a new section: Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Lester_Coleman_request_for_comment WhisperToMe (talk) 19:31, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Basically, its a BLP not a he said she said and they thought POV write up. Keep it simple and keep it clean and clear, less in this case is more, your content belongs on some op ed titillation article not here on wikipedia, the lowering of standards in such a way allows the lowering of standards all across the project and although you are interested in this sort of thing, it should not be allowed on this project. Off2riorob (talk) 19:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Off2riorob, the only part that is (for now) a "he said she said" is where Michael Hurley said Coleman worked one job while an attorney said he worked another. Aside from this, I have found no reliable sources or primary sources from Coleman which contradict anything that other people say. The outcome of the court case, the statements of the alias, the Lebanese wife, etc. have not been challenged by other sources.

As for the one thing that is a "he said she said." While WP:BLP prohibits "gossip," I don't see anywhere that states that BLP prohibits describing unclear legal conflicts and personality conflicts. Removing the conflict between Hurley and Coleman removes an essential element of Coleman's subject. We have to go in a he said she said routine and neutrally discuss the court case and its outcomes. See Wikipedia:BLP#Public_figures which says "If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it."

Why don't we continue this in the RFC? I am reposting the two posts below.

WhisperToMe (talk) 00:07, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

religious/nonreligious categorization without a clear personal self identification

There is a RFC discussion related to BLP contentious religious/nonreligious categorization without a clear personal self identification on the Ed Miliband biography, as this is likely related to wider articles, all opines are welcomed. Off2riorob (talk) 22:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

And once again the discussion has ignored our actual BLP policy statement "Categories regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question; and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to his notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources." I've pointed that out. Dougweller (talk) 13:44, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

It looks like it's a bit finer a hair to split than that on the Ed Miliband article - the question is really what constitutes 'self-identification' as an atheist. Guettarda (talk) 13:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Sister Wives and claims about religious affiliation

An entry was recently created for the new TLC reality show "Sister Wives". In this entry a sentence about the three wives in the show was plagiarized verbatim from a newspaper review that appeared in The Vancouver Sun. While I did not notice the plagiarism at first I did notice that a certain phrase, "... while Janelle, though a Mormon ... " , was being used in the sentence in a manner that did not appear to be particularly NPOV, so I removed it. After some discussion on the talk page with someone who questioned my removal I also realized that there was a BLP concern here. The husband on the show claims he is the patriarch of a Mormon fundamentalist family, and according to the editor who disagrees with me, the wife in question stated on the show that she was raised "Mormon" (implying mainstream LDS and not Fundamentalists). However, the Vancouver Sun review states "though a Mormon" as if she were still a Mormon (read LDS). To my eyes, given the lack of substantiation, and the disparity between sources following the Vancouver Sun review's lead is against WP:BLP -- not to mention copying the sentence verbatim is plagiarism, but that's another matter. Am I wrong?Griswaldo (talk) 02:31, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• The talk page discussion can be found here - Talk:Sister_Wives#Janelle_as_a_Mormon. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 02:33, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The newspaper article states unequivocally that Janelle is a Mormon ("Two of the wives, Meri and Christine, had been raised in polygamist families, while Janelle, though a Mormon, had not.") Pretty cut & dried. This editor has 'interpreted' that to say something entirely different and has resorted to personal attacks and insults as part of the discussion. I'm not sure what his agenda is, but to my way of thinking it is quite telling for a mainstream Mormon woman to embrace polygamy. Thank You. Duke53 | ^Talk 02:45, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• You think that is "quite telling", and you wonder what my "agenda" is? Duke, as Hunter points out below, other sources do not attest to the fact that she is a Mormon, but that she was raised a Mormon. That is also, the very basis of this dispute, and the very reason I think that using the quote in question does not satisfy BLP. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 12:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• I've been very involved in editing the Sister Wives article. I have not, however, gotten involved in this particular dispute, as it's not particularly important to me whether this particular reference gets mentioned in the article or not. However, Griswaldo, even if the wording here in this case could use some work, I think your interpretation of this as a WP:BLP violation is a stretch to say the very least. There are plenty of other sources out there that discuss Janelle's upbringing as a Mormon, and I think your energies would be better exerted in seeking those sources out and coming to some sort of compromise on the wording with Duke, rather than making an issue out of this in the noticeboard. On that subject, the fact that you brought this issue to a noticeboard at all, especially after barely two days of discussion, seems extremely hasty to me... — Hunter Kahn 03:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

(Note: I struck my own latter comment because I did not realize that before bringing this to BLP/N, Gris in fact asked Duke whether bringing the discussion to this noticeboard was the course of action they should take, and Duke agreed. I thought this was something Gris did on his own before the conversation had properly ended, but I see I misread the timing. Sorry about that!) — Hunter Kahn 19:37, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• Respectfully, Hunter, the situation was not resolving itself on the talk page, and this noticeboard is set up exactly to resolve such issues by offering outside input. There is nothing hasty about utilizing the resources available at Wikipedia to resolve impasses, at least I don't think so. Regarding the source and the statement, you might be right, but that means the original language that Duke is defending should be altered to reflect the correct timeline at the very least. The statement I removed did not say she was "raised Mormon" but that she was still Mormon. If you, as you say say, plenty of other sources state that she was raised Mormon then that piece of information isn't in the murky realm that the info I removed was in. If that is the case you'd be helping us both by providing those sources on the talk page or here so we can sort this out. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 12:05, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

•Unless you can show that she quit the lds church or was ex-communicated (or otherwise forced) from the lds church then she should still be considered a member of the lds church. Quite a simple concept actually: she was raised a Mormon and continues to be a Mormon until she quits or is forced away from being a Mormon. Cheers. Duke53 | ^Talk 14:17, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

•"You think that is "quite telling", and you wonder what my "agenda" is?" Yes, just as I'd question it if she was an agnostic who decided to embrace the polygamous lifestyle. You seem to think that since she is Mormon that the matter of her religion is off-limits. I don't believe you'd be deleting the info if she was a member of any other sect. Cheers. Duke53 | ^Talk 14:17, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I would indeed be deleting the same info. I have no particular care for the religions involved here. I do not like anti-(insert social group of choice) POV pushing of any kind, which is what I fear this looks like to me (and why I highlighted your "quite telling" comment). You claim that because one newspaper review of a reality TV show says someone is Mormon (and uses the present tense) that we need to produce official documents from the LDS showing that this isn't true or otherwise leave the information in the article? This is despite the fact that no other sources corroborate the information from this one television review, and in fact other evidence would lead one to believe that the person is no longer Mormon but now a Mormon fundamentalist? Your notion of sourcing for BLPs is completely on its head. We seek high quality corroboration of claims that we add about living people and not the other way around. Do you not get that?Griswaldo (talk) 14:53, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The sentence "Two of the wives, Meri and Christine, had been raised in polygamist families, while Janelle, though a Mormon, had not" is doubly ambiguous: firstly because it can plausibly read either as "while Janelle, though [she was] a Mormon" or "while Janelle, though [she is] a Mormon", and secondly because the label "Mormon" can be affixed to members of a number of different sects, not exclusively the LDS church, and media sources often do not take pains to be more specific. Thus, I think this particular sentence from the Vancouver Sun is not sufficiently clear by itself to support a claim that Janelle is (currently) a member of the LDS church, and if the article were to state such a claim based only on that source then I would call it a BLP concern. But the article never made such a specific claim; it just used the phrasing of the source: "Janelle, as a Mormon". This is pretty borderline—so I would judge it not to be a BLP violation under that phrasing, but the ambiguity plus the verbatim lifting from the source means it ought to be rephrased anyway for the sake of avoiding reader confusion. Which has in fact already been done here, so I think this issue has been resolved. alanyst ^/talk/ 18:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Brian Welsh

A related party is deleting content relating to a legal case involving the subject. The content has been restored by a few different users (including myself). Opinions welcomed. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 20:04, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• The incident you are now trying to publish never happened how it was reported then and has nothing to do with football which is the only reason this wikipedia exists the player is no David beck ham just leave the family alone thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Welsh family (talk • contribs) 20:08, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's a link to the article that was being referenced in the article and the content that was being warred over. Smartse (talk) 20:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

1. The incident was reported in at least one newspaper, the Daily Mail. The way Wikipedia works, a report in a reliable source takes precedence over an unsubstantiated claim by an anonymous editor.
2. The Daily Mail report is not a brief mention, but an extended account, including detailed reporting of how the incident is alleged to have taken place, what Welsh is supposed to have said about the incident, what Welsh's defence lawyer said in court, etc.
3. Both the user name and the above comment suggest that User:Welsh family has a conflict of interest.
4. While being a footballer is certainly the reason why Welsh is notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article, once he has that degree of notability other aspects of his life may become of public significance and interest. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

The Daily Mail is a widely published talbloid newspaper without a |great reputation for fact checking and accuracy. If it is the only source covering this story, then WP:BLP trumps and it should not be reincluded. Active Banana (^bananaphone 22:38, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I am only too well aware that the Daily Mail is not the most reliable of newspapers, in fact that is precisely why I took the trouble to mention the amount of detail that it reported. While I do not trust the Daily Mail to get every detail right, I think it is unlikely that a detailed account, including quoting what the defendants' lawyer said in court, is likely to be completely fabricated. The disputed content reports the fact of the conviction, the guilty pleas, the amounts of the fines, all of which is verifiable by court records. As far as I am aware there are no cases of even the Daily Mail claiming that court records say things that they don't. The disputed content also reported the fact that the defendants stated after the court case that they had "carried the can" for others. This is supposed to have been said away from court, presumably to journalists, and so is less verifiable, so there could be a case for just excluding this part of the report. However, in the interest of balanced reporting I would not advocate that. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The issue is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a tabloid. So information that is reported primarily in tabloids often should not be added to BLP of people that have minor notability. Otherwise it gives undue weight to this incident in their life since there are not ongoing published reports about other aspects of their life at the level of detail that a tabloid uses. The primary point of tabloid articles is sales. So they pick out material based on what will get readers attention not what is important for an reader to know about a situation or person. For these reasons, I agree that we do not need to include this content. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 13:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

While the Daily Mail is published in "Tabloid format" that does not make it a "tabloid" as commonly construed in the US (usually weeklies like the Weekly World News and the like. Format is not a WP standard -- as rimes change, a large number of mainstream papers change to the lower cost format. Collect (talk) 12:14, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually for our purposes, I thought we *did* consider the mail a Tabloid (regardless of format)? --Cameron Scott (talk) 12:30, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The Daily Mail is a middle market paper. This gives it greater credibility the say, The Sun, but not as much as for example, The Times. Exxolon (talk) 15:41, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Beth Krom

The Beth Krom article has no sources other than to her campaign site. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 22:53, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Tagged with {{primarysources}}, semiprotected during hopeful cleanup. -- Cirt (talk) 21:35, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Griselda Blanco

The Griselda Blanco article may have BLP problems.Rich (talk) 12:29, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I've excised the most obvious parts, and I'm working on rehabilitating it a bit; did you have specific issues that need to be addressed? // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 20:09, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

• No, not really. Thanks, Rich Peterson24.7.28.186 (talk) 00:00, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotected it during this cleanup process. -- Cirt (talk) 21:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

SexBomb Girls

Resolved

 – cited by User:Bluemask and trimmed by Off2riorob (talk) 19:03, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Long list of people without one single source. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 23:05, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Now on AFD, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SexBomb Girls. -- Cirt (talk) 21:34, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Nathaniel Stern

Nathaniel Stern (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This page is about me personally, and so I have not been making edits myself, although I have made pleas to the recent editor, Freshacconci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who seems to have an agenda regarding me and my work. They are propagating a lie about a controversial art work that took place on Wikipedia, and deleting relevant information about the project. There was also a recent attempt to change Freshacconci's edits by an IP, which Freshacconci reverted, and then wrongly accused me of being the IP.

I am asking for objective third parties to please look at the last few edits to the page about Nathaniel Stern, to see where Freshacconci has deleted, changed (including one outright falsehood / misrepresentation from the cited articles) and reverted edits to this page. I also ask to please look at the history of the talk page for Freshacconci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), to see where I have tried to reason with the user - I was ignored, then deleted without a response, and accused of being an IP that I am not.

I get that what Freshacconci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is editing on the page about me is not without baggage for Wikipedia, but that does not excuse this behavior, or lies about the topic to be propagated. I have been very patient about this (it's been over a month since I contacted Freshacconci - note that although the user's talk page says they are on wikibreak, they did not respond to my pleas and well-reasoned arguments for over a month, but reverted changes to my page within an hour of them occurring), and I'm willing to accept whatever conclusion third parties come to regarding this issue. The current edit disregards facts from the cited articles, and uses a false PR quote from that article as fact, without attributing said PR quote to the biased source, without stating the truth, and without giving the other side. The editor claims to be deleting information because it is "undue" - not only do I disagree, but even if you all agree, the edits go much further than this. Wikipedia is not a place to conceal and manipulate information so as to make its readers prejudge.

I am asking for a third party to edit the page / Wikipedia Art section (and perhaps the other deleted section) as they see fit (or for consensus to be reached about how it should be handled - but I believe such consensus should not involve me OR Freshacconci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)).

Thank you. NathanielS (talk) 14:52, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

As a follow-up, after my last message, Freshacconci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has taken actions to try and remedy the situation, also asking an uninvolved editor to take a look. I deleted a small section above, as I no longer believe Freshacconci should be blocked from editing my page. I think the user is now acting in good faith. Neither of us know if the uninvolved party will respond, so I'd still love it if someone from this forum can take a look. Thank you again. NathanielS (talk) 16:24, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd be happy to take a look. As I pointed out on my talk page, I am a deletionist/minimalist just for disclosure. So, unless "material" is widely covered/reported by reliable sources, I would leave out as non notable. I have no idea what the "dispute" is, but remember, Wikipedia is not really about the "truth" per say, but more about compiling all ready established/reported "facts" without inserting opinion(for bette or worse:) )...anyways...--Threeafterthree (talk) 16:41, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree. My issue is a misprepresentation of what has been reported - including in the articles actually cited. I've reponded on your talk page, here. Thank you so much for looking at this - I really appreciate it. NathanielS (talk) 19:08, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

This discussion moved here —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nathaniels (talk • contribs) 19:36, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Stephen Colbert silliness

Despite what appears to be a contrary consensus on the article's talk page, several editors seem intent on reporting the details of a skit on the Colbert Report as real-world events. Most of the reported details of Colbert's supposed "knighthood" aren't to be found in the cited sources, which are 1) an episode of the Colbert Report, which is a work of fiction/satire; 2) a 2008-copyrighted article, which can't possibly be an RS for events of 2009, especially since it unsurprisingly doesn't mention them; and 3) an official show recap, which shares the fictional/satirical nature of the show itself, and mentions few of the recited elements of the "knighthood" "ceremony." There are BLP issues attendant on reporting that the dowager queen of Jordan would confer a high national military honor on an American comedian, and there appear to be no reliable news sources treating the "knighthood" as a real-world event. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 02:11, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Direct them to Stephen Colbert (character), where the information belongs. There is a clear distinction between the actor and the (exactly same named) character he plays on the Colbert Report. He himself has noted this distinction, such as in an interview he gave on Fresh Air. Which is why we have a seperate article. The article on the character, btw, discusses the fictional knighting, see Stephen_Colbert_(character)#Fictional_biography, which is well cited as well. --Jayron32 04:49, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Rick Hendrick

It looks problematic to me. What do other people think? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Borderline. One of the links re: the conviction is dead, but the NYT one appears fine. The section ends with a documented description of his presidential pardon, so it doesn't seem too UNDUE or slanted towards the negative. I'm sure it could probably be trimmed a bit without losing any meaning. Jclemens (talk) 04:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The pardon makes that part notable, in a way. I was more concerned with the deaths of his family members. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Tagged with {{refimproveBLP}}. Semi-protected the page. -- Cirt (talk) 00:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

American University of Beirut

American University of Beirut (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) very long list of alumni with no sources listed. Should we tag as citations needed or delete? I don't have/time interest in sourcing the information myself. Gerardw (talk) 11:54, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

User:Off2riorob made the deletions; I added the standard message I use when making such removals to alumni lists to the discussion page. As a side note, anyone is of course welcome to copy-paste that message whenever they make similar deletions; I use a similar one for television station alumni (you can see the most current version of that at Talk:WTVJ). No matter what we say, of course, people will continue to re-add those names, but at least having the explanation on talk serves as our justification for the removal of unimportant and unverified BLP info. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:25, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected the page. -- Cirt (talk) 00:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Sarkozy a gipsy? His grandfather a farmer? - suspect vandalism

Hi. I see that an IP added a few comments that I suspect to be vandalism on the Nicholas Sarkozy page. The comments are in the second paragraph of the section */Family background/*. It says that Sarkozy's father was born into a gypsy family and that his grandfather was a farmer. I tracked this back to an edit made at 10:34, 27 September 2010 by IP 79.114.46.36. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 22:58, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I reverted the edit at Nicolas Sarkozy that added "gipsy" because it is not in the reference. The comment in the article about "farmer" is referring to an event before 1628, so it is not talking about Sarkozy's grandfather, and it seems entirely likely. Johnuniq (talk) 02:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected the page. -- Cirt (talk) 23:57, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Need Help

I represent E. Max Frye, an American screenwriter, and want to change his Wikipedia page; however, every time I make an edit, the page reverts to the incorrect information that had been uploaded previously. I don't know who wrote it, but the information is incorrect. The correct information is presented here, on the NYU wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Max_Frye

Please help me edit Mr. Frye's page. The information that is currently present on the Wikipedia page is incredibly upsetting to Mr. Frye and to those who know him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kustanovich (talk • contribs) 04:08, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Odd that you say incorrect. Max (or his people) previously blanked most content, but they only said they blanked it because it was personal information and not because it is incorrect. In the emails I received following those old edits, Frye (or his rep) again were trying to keep personal details out, not so much saying things were incorrect. Aboutmovies (talk) 00:34, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The page was full-protected during a dispute. Information has been given to the user at the article talk page and user talk page. If necessary, suggest WP:Dispute resolution at the article talk page. -- Cirt (talk) 23:56, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

I put this in the article Talk page, but maybe it belongs here:

The last part of this sentence was added recently with no reference: "Sheikh Mohammed has 19 officially acknowledged children: eight sons and eleven daughters of whom Mohammed Sharn Abdur-Rahman he cherishes most."

With no supporting ref, I think it should be removed, esp. since it is hurtful to the other children. I plan to do so unless someone objects with supporting data. Karen Anne (talk) 13:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I have removed it. JohnCD (talk) 13:16, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected the page. -- Cirt (talk) 23:54, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

SPA on Tucker Max

• Tucker Max (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Captain Patriot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This article has had several SPAs attack it over the last several months, as an investigation of its' edit history shows. In the case of this one, his first edit was a rant on the talk page suggesting that "Tucker's PR people" be kept from editing the article, his second was insertion of BLP-violating material in the article lede and his third and fourth edits were reverts. The editing pattern used by this one is quite similar to the ones by User:Bryanholliday and User:Terranmedic, although both of those are stale as far as SPIs go. The accusation of "censoring criticism" is a common refrain from SPAs on that article, though, who feel that the article needs to be as negatively slanted "for accuracy" as possible. Seth Kellerman (talk) 22:52, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Is that link to User:Captain Patriot correct? There are no contributions for that editor? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 22:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah. It's CaptainPatriot (talk · contribs), and I note that nobody has discussed these concerns on the User's Talk page. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 22:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The user has been warned. Warned another user. Semi-protected the page. -- Cirt (talk) 23:53, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

David Helfenbein

This person does not seem notable —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apples6547 (talk • contribs) 23:43, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

May be a borderline case, but it looks referenced and nothing jumps out at me as unsourced negative material. If you or someone really thinks he's not notable you're probably going to need to look to articles for deletion--Cube lurker (talk) 18:44, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Nominated for AFD, now at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Helfenbein. -- Cirt (talk) 23:51, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Bob Devin Jones

• Bob Devin Jones (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - I recently stumbled over the article and noted the reference section. I saw that it had been involved in a deletion of the article request earlier, but that it also had passed the test. The cited information however seems to be invalid, just "Reference needed" within ref-tags. I can't see any potential harmful information, but it needs a check-up. // MoRsE (talk) 07:49, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Removed the unsourced info. Semi-protected the page. -- Cirt (talk) 23:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Nooruddeen Durkee

Could any editor help with the article, on pointing out places which perhaps doesn't suit Tone of Wikipedia Biographies of living persons. The article has been cleaned up already.

Tagged the page with {{refimproveBLP}}. Seriously unsourced sects on the BLP page, needs major cleanup. Semiprotected the page. -- Cirt (talk) 21:54, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Steven T. Murray

• Steven T. Murray (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Osobooks (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I added a fact to this article, cited to the New York Times Magazine [1]. Another user removed the item, with the edit note “removed erroneous speculation from New York Times” [2]. I re-added the item [3], and the same user removed it again [4], this time signing the edit note “STM”, impliedly claiming to be the subject of the article. How should I proceed? Mathew5000 (talk) 05:57, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• This sounds like an issue for WP:COIN rather than here. Just as a side note, if a source is challenged, then the best thing to do is to find confirmation in another source. Even the New York Times Magazine gets something wrong, and if it is relevent information, it tends to get covered by multiple sources. I have no statement one way or the other if the NYTM sourcs is wrong or not, but one way to say that it isn't is to find confirmation elsewhere. --Jayron32 06:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Sure it would be nice if there were a second source for confirmation, but suppose none can be found. Then all we have is on one hand, the reputation of the New York Times, and on the other hand a single editor who claims (without citation) that the source is wrong. Mathew5000 (talk) 16:08, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

My opinion: If a user was trying to insert unsourced information into a BLP with an edit summary of "it's true", it would likely be removed and, ultimately, a talk page discussion could ensue as to whether the info should be included. The same is true here; an editor should not be able to remove reliably sourced material from an article by simply stating "not true". They need to be directed to the talk page where they can explain what aspects of the information are incorrect and how they know it's incorrect. They should not remove the New York Times sourced information wholesale without discussion to determine the validity of their claims. Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 19:52, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• Warned the user, and issued the user info about conflict of interest. Both users should engage in discussion, at the article's talk page, and pursue WP:Dispute resolution, rather than back-and-forth edit-warring. -- Cirt (talk) 21:53, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Ram Sharan Sharma

• Ram Sharan Sharma (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Mghori (talk · contribs)

Mghori is adding potentially libelous statements in a BLP. His additions are OR and he seems to have an extreme pro-hindu agenda and is claiming conspiracies all over. I have tried to engage him in the talk pages of the articles involved. But he continues to edit war and push his POV. In other articles, he is removing referenced criticism sections claiming that they dont include the subject's response.

I have already exceeded the 3rr reverting him. I am claiming the libel reversion excuse, but can someone take a look and warn him /block him (He has left threatening edit summaries as well)--Sodabottle (talk) 07:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

All my contributions are related court judgement or reference to incidents not with any original research. My point is same standard shall be maintained when some criticism part. When it is refer to mere statements some individual but to have replies from the person concerned when person is living. Sodabottle is either motivated or ignorant but is certainly threatening me with blocks etc. Request Sodabottle shall be suitable warned.Mghori (talk) 08:06, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• Using the court judgement to say Sharma was motivated in helping muslims is Original research - did the court explicitly say sharma was motivated in helping muslims. No!!. The judgement was not about sharma at all. It is interesting how you have two standards for living persons. You remove referenced criticism from Elst's article saying it has to have replies from the subject, But add unreferenced criticism - your own - to Sharma's article. 3RR warning is a standard warning message. and your respond with a "no more editing will be tolerated" threat. If someone does not agree with your edits, you have to talk it out in the discussion page, arrive at a consensus and then only add the material back. That is wikipedia policy. In this case, i am clearly pointing out how you are violating wikipedia policy in the talk page. Instead of listening, you are editwarring using threatening edit summaries--Sodabottle (talk) 08:22, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
  • The edit here is OR, badly sources (just someone's post to rediff.com), in the lead although not discussed in the article, and in short, a clear BLP violation. Mghori, don't do this again. I note that most of your edits appear to be denigrating BLPs, in particular calling them Marxist without adding reliable sources. Dougweller (talk) 09:33, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I want to clear the subject and my intention. Sharma is noted historian in India enjoying all kinds of position in Indian government. He has written many statements and in many books that there is no temple existed in Ayodhya and Ayodhya not considered hindu holy place before 19th century. This statement he made specifically to Lucknow high court. But based on Archealogical findings (See Ayodhy Archealogy page on wiki itself, there i have no edits) court decided there was temple existed and it was demolished to make Mosque. So it is very clear to any body the motivation of Sharma, he is now proved wrong by archealogists as well by court. [redacted by Dougweller (talk) 13:36, 2 October 2010 (UTC)]

Now my references are to book by Arun shourie equally famous journalist (original work) and Koenraad Elst a Flemish Historian who actively replies to all his critics (Unlike sharma who shields from Media) about Sharma's statement I repeat statement (incident) not any comments or opinion ! My other 2 references are to one Wiki article (Where I have no edits) and Rediff article. Dougweller ! This is not posting. This is a link to court judgement copy. Dougweller, Sodabottle - Please withdraw your warning. Mghori (talk) 10:44, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• No court can determine anything about the interpretation of archaeological findings, and there was no link to the court judgement, only something someone wrote that may or may not have been accurate and certainly was not complete. I've removed part of your edit, if you continue to make libelous statements like that you will be blocked. Dougweller (talk) 13:36, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
  • That didn't stop Purushottam Nagesh Oak bringing a PIL suit about the Taj Mahal. Welcome to the world of two opposed schools of Indian history, and one of the many fronts on which that battle is fought. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 16:44, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
• You can't draw conclusions about motivation and include them in articles here. That is original research. Even with sources, the bar for inclusion of information in a BLP is higher than it is for other articles and I suggest you read WP:BLP carefully before thinking about adding potentially negative information in one. Note also that libeling a person here (that is on WP:ANI, is not a good idea either. You might want to consider redacting some of the terms you've used above. --RegentsPark (talk) 11:26, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I would add that the OR is also silly. Even if someone was wrong about certain things, that doesn't in itself tell us they had sinister motivations. Plenty of people make good faith errors all the time including right here on wikipedia. BTW for those confused by some aspects of the above discussion, this discussion was original at WP:ANI but was moved here by another editor. Nil Einne (talk) 12:38, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
• I agree that the material was improper, and exactly what our BLP standards were intended to prevent. But I notice that most of the long section of the article consists of unsourced praise, and their wording suggests to me that they were copied from book jackets or publishers blurbs. Even the quotations from sourced reviews are given at undue length--we normally quote much less--generally in editing academic bios I quote a key phrase only. If the material is not online, I'll add a sentence or two--but in the footnote, not the main text. NPOV and RS applies to BLP, for positive as well as negative statements. DGG ( talk ) 01:12, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I never said court interpreted but court given a judgement based on Archealogical findings. Dougweller please correct your self. I will try and rephrase the edit next when i get time.Mghori (talk) 03:24, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

You still haven't got what everyone is saying. It is not only about phrasing. It is also about original research. Find a source that directly criticises Sharma and use it say "source X criticises Sharma such and such" and add it to the criticism section (not the lead). If you add the same material in other words, it is still OR.--Sodabottle (talk) 03:50, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I do not know which langauge shall I use but I am at loss of words to communicate that an incident and court judgement cannot be OR. They r to be considered matter of fact. I do not know how to get Admistrator rights but people who have like SOdabottle and Dougweller certainly do not have any knowldge about encyclopedia. They do not deserve them at all. Mghori (talk) 07:08, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Please stop the personal attacks. This sort of behaviour is not acceptable in wikipedia.--Sodabottle (talk) 07:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Sodabottle Please be objective. Do not keep threatening me like blocking and warning. It is u first threatened my blocks and warning. I have been objective till now. Mghori (talk) 08:16, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

First you add libelous statements in a BLP, then you edit war, issue threats in edit summaries, libel the subject in the ANI thread and you insult other editors. And you are talking about being objective? Jeez!--Sodabottle (talk) 08:34, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

• Warned users involved. Full protected the page for one week. Involved users, please engage in discussion, at the article's talk page. Further disruptive editing may result in blocks. -- Cirt (talk) 21:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Karl Henry

Vandalism, needs to be locked. English Premier League footballer. Needs urgent locking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryankonkolewski (talk • contribs) 14:01, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected for three days. Favonian (talk) 14:18, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism and BLP disruption issues continued; semiprotected the page again. -- Cirt (talk) 21:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Aravind L Iyer

Aravind L Iyer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) There have been repeated attempts to provide personal details such as date and place of birth which are not verifiable in any reliable public resource for this biography of a living person. This has the potential for identity theft. Further other unsupported and irrelevant claims are being made in the article regarding purported user names and on line ids of the individual whose biography is provided in the article.

It does appear that there is improper behavior from some contributors on this article. An administrator should be along to look at the page history and take any necessary action. However, I notice that you proposed the deletion of the article on the grounds that it was an unreferenced BLP. I have contested this, because the article is referenced. Although the references come from the subject's employer's website, they are not technically "self published" in all cases, because there is editorial oversight of the website independent of Mr. Iyer. As the NIH is a well-respected academic institution, and the facts cited are not controversial (Mr. Iyer's CV can be readily verified by looking up the individual articles), the "unreferenced" claim doesn't fly. It would be preferable to have additional independent references, but the article doesn't require deletion. If you still believe that deletion is necessary, please use the WP:AFD process. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 03:25, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotected the page. If unsourced changes continue, the users can be blocked, if behavior pattern is still an issue with particular users in question in edit history at the article page. -- Cirt (talk) 21:43, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Eren Derdiyok

There is a low-speed edit war going on as to whether Eren Derdiyok is a Turk or a Kurd. Reliable sourcing would be good, or else we'll have to remove the ethnicity altogether. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 21:57, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Ethnicity should not be included in the lead sentence unless it is the reason for the person's notability, and I don't see that here. Discusion of ethnicity would be more appropriate for an early life type section, with proper sources of course. --Threeafterthree (talk) 15:13, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotected the page. Users and/or IPs making unsourced changes to BLP pages could be blocked, if this behavior pattern continues at the page. -- Cirt (talk) 21:41, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

chrissie maher

Paragraph 4 of this Biography is written all wrong ...I dont even think it should be even in a Biography can anyone help? Martinos155 (talk) 16:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

This was already brought up not long ago on this noticeboard; the text currently in place is the result of that previous discussion. As mentioned on the article's talk page, the paragraph in question briefly discusses sourced, notable case where the BLP subject was accused of spreading rumors at the organization she founded; those accusations were upheld by a legal tribunal that found they were grounds for a case of constructive dismissal. The issue was reported in the mainstream press. The current wording is as minimal as possible while being factual and neutral. To not mention this case would result in an imbalanced article. While I acknowledge that it seems a borderline case under WP:UNDUE, I think that the article will be less balanced if it is omitted, and any undue emphasis can be corrected by expanding the article. I've already made a stab at doing so using readily-available Internet sources. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 16:18, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotected the page during this discussion. -- Cirt (talk) 21:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Penny Pritzker and other Pritzker family articles

• ProfessorSkill22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

A new editor has begun by making potentially controversial but also potentially valid and useful edits to articles about Ms. Pritzker, her family and their business holdings. In some cases, they appear to paint her in a more negative light vis-à-vis other Pritzkers with whom she has been in disputes. ProfessorSkill22's only edits to date have been on this topic but he appears to be a skilled editor familiar with our content requirements. I don't have time to review the references used and then give these articles the attention they need.

Ms. Pritzker is a member of one of America's wealthiest families and a key backer of Barrack Obama's campaigns. As a result, her article in the past has attracted some drive-by whacko edits but these new edits don't fall into that category.

I'd appreciate one or more experienced editors making sure these article changes are appropriate both in terms of referencing as well as overall article neutrality. Thanks, --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:50, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Note that most of these edits are months old but still largely in effect.For example, here are ProfessorSkill22's changes to the Penny Pritzker article and here are the subsequent changes. I think the concern is more one of overall neutrality (especially in the dispute between Pritzkers) in this case. See some older discussions at Talk:Penny Pritzker. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not an expert on her life, but given the first of the examples you point to I will WP:AGF. Thanks for the heads up. An expert might still want to look more closely.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:19, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Removed the blatantly unsourced info. Semiprotected the page. -- Cirt (talk) 21:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Rae Waters

Two newly created sections, "Controversy" and "Political positions," were added by agents of opposing, current campaigns. They are poorly sourced - the "Controversy" section in particular has a single source, the local GOP site instead of a reputable news or scholarly organization - and the "Political positions" is simply a spinjob intended to damager Rae. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.99.133.93 (talk) 22:44, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Welcomed the users. Cleaned up the page a bit. Semi-protected it. -- Cirt (talk) 23:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! The "political positions" section remains opinion-based; Rae is not "one of the most liberal members" by a long shot. This information was inserted because she represents a moderate, leans-conservative district. It's simply a hatchet job.

Thanks again for your prompt response! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.99.133.93

I tried to fix it a bit more and also warned the user. -- Cirt (talk) 21:09, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

David Bruce McMahan

The page David Bruce McMahan which was created today references reports of some rather serious claims about the subject. According to one of the sources used a similar page had been deleted from Wikipedia some time in the past. I know nothing about that issue but figured I should point out what's going on to others before things get too crazy. As for my involvement, I just cleaned up the references a little. I haven't yet taken the time to verify the claims beyond skimming some of the references (which do appear to support the controversial claims). Because of the nature of the claims and serious BLP issues obviously we need to proceed carefully. SQGibbon (talk) 22:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

This issue is now at WP:ANI. -- Cirt (talk) 03:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Vassula Ryden

Vassula Ryden (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Arkatakor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I would like to report a conflict of interest (COI) user who has recently begun editing a BLP titled “Vassula Ryden”.

The user edits under the name MLPIO (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and began edits approximately 2 months ago. In the process, MLPIO has violated numerous Wikipedia policies, which I highlight below. Before that, I would like to provide some background information on this user, which I think will make clear why I am approaching you directly, as opposed to initially going to discussion, as suggested by Wikipedia guidelines.

Introduction to MLPIO

“MLPIO” is short for Maria Laura Pio. She is the most well-known critic of Vassula Ryden for the last 15 years. In light of Wikipedia’s ‘neutral point of view’ stance, the following facts raise valid concerns regarding the ability of this user to make unbiased edits and constructive contributions to this BLP (Vassula Ryden).

1) In 2001, Maria Laura Pio created a critical website on Vassula Ryden and True Life in God, which she actively maintains and administers:

‘A Critical Website on Vassula Ryden and “True Life in God”’ http://www.infovassula.ch/

Note text at the bottom of main page: “Administered by Maria Laura Pio – [email protected] – Switzerland”. This demonstrates that she is responsible for the content of the website.

2) On this website, MLPIO gives a negative testimony on her personal experience of reading True Life in God (books published by Vassula Ryden) and, towards the end, states that: “After several years of these events, certain circumstances made me realize that I could not silence what I had experienced. This is the reason why this site has been created”.

http://www.infovassula.ch/tlighome.html#TESTIMONY1

3) Maria Laura Pio consistently posts negative comments about Vassula Ryden and True Life in God on innumerable websites and forums maintained by individuals/groups and directs people to her personal website.

4) I scanned two handwritten letters, which I consider provide relevant insight regarding MLPIO’s state of mind and emotional disposition. Originally deeply interested in and supportive of Vassula’s work (first letter), she suddenly inversed her support and initiated a fierce opposition to Vassula/True Life in God via the creation of her ‘anti-Vassula/TLIG’ website. She posted on her website some extracts of a personal letter she had received from the Episcopal Conference of Switzerland (ECS), the publication of which – never the intention of the ECS – caused them deep offence. A brief summary of this aforementioned letter:

“I have addressed Mrs. Marta [sic] Laura Pio a letter in a personal capacity which was not at all designated for publication. Moreover, I have criticized her for the fact she has published the few lines which I had personally addressed to her, telling her that normally only sects act in that way!”

If there is an email address I can send the aforementioned scanned letters to, please let me know. I feel they help provide valuable insight into the state of mind of this user. The 2nd letter is signed by Fr Agnell Rickenmann, General Secretary of the ECS.

Summary of MLPIO’s edits:

In her Vassula Ryden Wikipedia edits, MLPIO has violated Wikipedia’s policies regarding editing entries on BLP's by frequently using poor citations in her reference information. In fact, several of her references are not only poorly referenced but actually link to her own personal critical website that she holds against Vassula Ryden/True Life in God, which I mentioned earlier.

Here is a diff that highlights the changes MLPIO has done to the Vassula Ryden entry, though I will highlight some of them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vassula_Ryden&action=historysubmit&diff=376907965&oldid=375602352

1) In an inserted paragraph, MLPIO mentions “an ex-member of Mrs Ryden’s association”. The “ex member” mentioned in the aforementioned text is none other then herself. Thus, she has effectively performed two violations:

A) Mentioning herself in the article - this is a violation as she does not represent any institution / clergy / or publication entity whatsoever.

B) Inserting poorly sourced material in an attempt to back up her aforementioned point that speaks about herself in the article. Furthermore, credibility goes out the window if you follow the reference footnote attached since it directs you to MLPIO’s personal critical website:

http://www.infovassula.ch/tligchurchposition.htm#Swiss

2) MLPIO added another paragraph and again used a single reference to her website – the reference links as follows:

http://www.infovassula.ch/tligchurchposition.htm

3) There are several positive and negative documents that have been published by the Catholic Church regarding Vassula Ryden. In an effort to maintain neutrality during my edits, I have made it a point to mention all of them, by doing what is standard in Wikipedia:

A) Quote the highlights of all positive and negative documents;

B) Include a citation and referenced link to a complete version of each document to enable the reader to examine them in their full context, should he/she wish to do so.

However, although a reference and highlights of a negative document with a link to the full version was previously mentioned, MLPIO for her part made an edit in order to include this document in its ENTIRETY. The modification is the last quoted italicized paragraph that can be found in the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassula_Ryden#Dialogue_between_Vassula_and_the_CDF

In the guidelines for creating entries, Wikipedia states: “Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints;”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Criticism_and_praise

Thus, quoting a negative document in FULL for an entry that is supposed to be a BLP, creates major (and in this case intentional) distortion.

As mentioned before, there are positive documents regarding Vassula Ryden written by respected clergy. Example's are the “Nihil Obstat” and the “Imprimatur” that was granted on 28.11.2005 by Bishop Felix Toppo S.J. and Archbishop Ramon C. Arguelles respectively to Vassula’s work and “True Life in God”. Both are mentioned in the entry but are not quoted in their entirety and again, nor should they be as this is a BLP.

4) In her edits, MLPIO disregards and does not conform to the established style of the article. An example of this would be naming several of her references in all caps in order to make them stand out, or making multiple references to her same critical website. MLPio has employed phrases or words like “many critics” and “certainly” – “weasel words”, according to Wikipedia, that may introduce bias.

Conclusion:

I would like to conclude by stating the following:

I am aware that in light of her violations regarding the insertion of poorly referenced material in a BLP, Wikipedia states that such content "must be removed immediately and without discussion." I have intentionally refrained from doing so. The reasons being are:

1) This would result in an “edit war” between me and MLPIO which I want to avoid.

2) I feel the first step is to send you this report and wait for your response before taking action.

I am hopeful that after your review, her account will be disabled.

I look forward to your decision.

Arkatakor (talk) 14:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The article is absolutely shocking, one of the worst I've ever seen on wikipedia, it needs a complete rewrite. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

@ Cameron Scott

Are you a moderator? The purpose of my report was to highlight a COI user editing this entry - Regarding your comment about the entry needing a complete re-write, in the past 6 months this entry has gone from:

• 4 very minor and incomplete sections,
• 0 subsections
• 3 poor non 3rd party sources

TO:

• 8 sections most with huge amounts of content
• 10 subsections
• 40+ 3rd party sources / references based on books written by respected researchers and theologians

Thus this entry has already been completely re-written and was doing fine until MLPIO stepped in (again see diff in my original report). I am not concerned about its current state but rather what can be done to prevent it from being distorted by MLPIO in the future. As I mentioned in my report, wikipedia guidelines state that poorly inserted references or material for BLP's "must be removed immediately and without discussion". Thus I am fully entitled to undo MLPIO's changes but have intentionally refrained from doing so to avoid an edit war with this user. Please keep me posted as to what action will be taken against MLPIO.

Arkatakor (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC).

That person last edited at the start of august so the COI report is completely stale. The article in its current state is absolutely dire - it breaches our guidelines on Neutrality, most of the sources are either Self-published or simply not reliable, it breaches the MOS in many many ways (for example, it uses the subject's first name, we use surnames - that's only a minor problem, one of many), it's full of original research and novel sythesis (bringing together of sources to make a new conclusion). It needs a complete rewrite. --Cameron Scott (talk) 09:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Moreover, if anyone has a conflict of interest it appears to be you, this edit by you about a deleted picture of Vassula Ryden notes that The person in the picture gave me permission to use that image; In fact she chose it. - which suggests that you are either working for or at the beheast of Ryden. Moreover, you then note that A group of us are working very hard on this page but you seem to be the only editor working seriously on that page, which suggests that maybe this is a role or shared account? --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

To dismiss that MLPIO is a COI entirely on the basis of the date of her last edit seems to indicate to me that you have not checked MLPIO's openly critical website, not to mention all the references / material she inserted in the entry which link to that critical website, which is far from a viable source. I have said before, I have refrained from making edits because I know she will make counter edits or tweaks to distort anything that does not fit her critical view. This is another reason she has not been editing recently.

In fact you contradict yourself about her not being a COI user because thankfully, your latest edit addressed one of the COI items with MLPIO I had listed in my initial report which was that of her including an entire negative document in the entry in order to distort things. You removed that entire quoted negative document and summarized it in a single sentence which was also the solution I was proposing. For this I am grateful.

Now kindly look into her other edits, notably the ones which have references 40-43 attached to them - to use your distasteful annotation, the references for sources 40-43 are also "absolute shite".

I have also asked you twice if you are a moderator and you have not responded to that query; I am new to this system and am still figuring out the ropes so bear with me on this. Again I would appreciate if you could respond to this query.

Regarding your mention of me being a COI user, I am merely a person who has been working on this project on a voluntary basis. Regarding my statement, yes at one point I did contact Vassula to tell her I was working on this entry and ask her for permission to use her picture. And she chose it for me. In working through this project I have consulted other people while editing the articles, that’s why I said “we”. No, my account is not a shared account.

As for your other edits I would like to have a serious discussion about these; kindly indicate to me which is the best avenue of communication for this as they would be too lengthy to list here.

Arkatakor (talk) 10:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

In answer to your questions, we don't have moderators, we have administators, no I'm not an administrator. However, just so you are clear about this, Administrators have no special power over articles, they can't control content and have to follow the same guidelines and policies as the rest of us. As for discussing my recent edits, the article talkpage is the best place. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

BLP violation at Stanley Pons,

I came across a BLP violation at Stanley Pons, but I'm under a discretionary sanction banning me from cold fusion topics at the moment. I raised this with the banning administrator,[5], but he's not active immediately. Without permission, I can't fix that article, which has a blatant BLP violation not supported in balance by the sources cited, which have been cherry-picked and synthesized to say what they don't say; I detail some of the issues in my request to the admin, giving an article, Martin Fleischmann, covering the exact same issues, but much more neutrally, and if there are questions, I can answer them on my Talk page. Otherwise, I'm filing this report and letting it go for now.

The problem text is:

• After the claims were determined to be unreproducible, the scientific community determined that the pair had engaged in fraudulent,[6] sloppy[7][8] and unethical work,[5] incomplete, unreproducible, and inaccurate results,[7][1] and erroneous interpretations.[9]
• The sources support some scientists making the claim, not that the community "determined" this, and the sources also fault the claimants as well as possibly Pons and Fleischmann.
• The "determined to be unreproducible" is also misleading, but that goes into the overall conflict on cold fusion, so.... my suggestion is to more accurately report what is in the reliable sources, with the balance, not cherry-picked.

Thanks. --Abd (talk) 17:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Has been fixed now [6] but I'm not sure that the earlier version is great either. In this case we should be particularly careful about the "fraud" claim. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:26, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• - Well, I fixed it and a user came along and replaced the excessive criticism. I have removed it again. Off2riorob (talk) 21:03, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Full protected for one week. Advised the two users edit-warring over it to discuss on the talk page, instead. -- Cirt (talk) 21:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

And this was the response I got to one of the posts to one of those users' talk pages. Interesting. -- Cirt (talk) 21:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Your administration in this case is totally unnecessary and excessive. What is interesting? What edit warring? Off2riorob (talk) 21:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Note: User Off2riorob (talk · contribs) has been warned before about overstepping BLP in order to gratuitously engage in disruptive editing on Wikipedia. -- Cirt (talk) 21:23, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Your administration in this case is totally unnecessary and excessive. What is interesting? What edit warring? Also , actually I didn't just delete your comment from my talkpage I moved it to your talkpage and responded, see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cirt#Stanley_Pons - Off2riorob (talk) 21:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

And now Off2riorob (talk · contribs) is instead choosing to repeat himself in this thread, verbatim. My, that is not really quite helpful at all. -- Cirt (talk) 21:26, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what the issue is here and User Cirt's position, but it is not my editing. Off2riorob (talk) 21:27, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree the protection doesn't really seem to have been necessary here. There was basically one revert and there hasn't been any significant problems in recent times Nil Einne (talk) 07:37, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

How Wikipedia works (almost)

1. User A inserts BLP violation.
2. User B removes violation.
3. User A restores BLP violation.
4. User A then tells administrator: "Shame on me! I have edit warred. Please protect the article for a month."

Well. in reality this is not exactly what happened, but almost.

The BLP violation was first inserted by an IP in this edit. The edit basically says that Pons is hoaxer.

Off2riorob responded to this request, but instead of removing the violation tweaked another part of the sentence. I then fully removed the violation and reverted the content to its pre-violation form. My version was endorsed by JoshuaZ above. Today Off2riorob restored the violation in this edit.

The reason I did not keep any of Off2riorob's tweaks which truncated the criticism is because I believe the extensive wording gives a more positive impression of Pons. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• Your edit appeared to add these descriptions of the living person as sloppy, and unethical work, and erroneous interpretations (of the data) - these additions are excessive and add nothing of added value except to additionally critisise the subject. I added nothing and as I saw, removed the blp vios. Off2riorob (talk) 22:43, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

No, at first you totally missed the violation and and in your revert you restored it. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:49, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Another little comment here, a ref named and unethical work, really Petri? you think this is suitable for a BLP? mark nutley (talk) 22:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I would be surprised indeed to see rob make a BLP violation, are you certain here Petri? Looking at the diff it would appear Robs revert was at least more NPOV, i mean your revert had a ref called sloppy for gods sake mark nutley (talk) 22:49, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Should we discus the issue here or on the talk page? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:53, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Hang on, look at what you reverted in here, ref names sloppy > and unethical work Those that failed to reproduce the claim attacked the pair for fraudulent really? you think this is ok for a BLP? what were you thinking Petri? mark nutley (talk) 22:56, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I definitely think it is the right thing to say. It is extensively sourced and it has stood there for at least 1.5 without any BLP complaints. (I will give further analysis of the versions later.) -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is a summary of the version history (New text in bold):

1. Those that failed to reproduce the claim attacked the pair for fraudulent,[5][6] sloppy[7][5][8] and unethical work,[5] incomplete[7] unreproducible[1] and inaccurate[1] results, erroneous interpretations,[9] as Fleischmann predicted they would do. (17 February 2009)
2. Those that failed to reproduce the claim attacked the pair for fraudulent,[6] sloppy[7][8] and unethical work,[5] incomplete, unreproducible, and inaccurate results,[7][1] and erroneous interpretations.[9] (13 September 2010)
3. After the claims were determined to be unreproducible, the scientific community determined that the pair had engaged in fraudulent,[6] sloppy[7][8] and unethical work,[5] incomplete, unreproducible, and inaccurate results,[7][1] and erroneous interpretations.[9] (26 September 2010 – BLP violation by IP)
4. After the claims were found to be unreproducible, the scientific community determined the claims were incomplete, unreproducible, and inaccurate.[6][7][8][5][7][1][9] (7 October 2010 – Off2riorob's tweaks)
5. Those that failed to reproduce the claim attacked the pair for fraudulent,[6] sloppy[7][8] and unethical work,[5] incomplete, unreproducible, and inaccurate results,[7][1] and erroneous interpretations.[9] (8 October 2010 – my full revert – 6. reverted by Off2riorob)

-- Petri Krohn (talk) 00:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

To the extent that the references are immediately verifiable online, they support Krohn's interpretation here. Off2riorob's edit[7], with the edit comment "excessively critical" as the sole reason for the edit, doesn't withstand scrutiny. It's not an explanation; it's basically WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Using the same footnote numbers as Krohn's restored version8 October 2010 as quoted above, let's see what the sources say. I will add emphasis to words that support the text in the article.

5: "Critics of cold fusion have lambasted this research as either fraudulent or sloppy, while proponents have charged that critics are close-minded and dogmatic."

5: "Those who could not reproduce the experiments often described the work of Fleischmann and Pons and of Jones as unethical, and sloppy."

6: "In the second meeting, however, Koonin and Lewis turned the tables on the chemists by drawing a humorously oblique contrast between the 'good science' of physicists and the sloppy, even fraudulent efforts of the chemists Pons and Fleischmann."

7: (quoting Park 2000, 122–123) "...What began as wishful interpretations of sloppy and incomplete experiments had evolved into deliberate obfusication and suppression of data"

5: "Many different parties on all sides of this dispute violated ethical norms."

8: "Entirely discredited, the notion of cold fusion today denotes an infamous episode of sloppy science that chemists, especially, would prefer to forget."

So... the sentence is perhaps slightly inaccurate in its phrasing, but it's far from "excessively critical." If anything, its brevity lessens the degree of criticism heaped upon the subject. An more-accurate version of the sentence based on the references I could immediately check would be "Critics of Pons and Fleischmann's work, including those who tried—and failed—to reproduce it, have called the cold-fusion experiment "fraudulent", "sloppy", and "incomplete". Both sides of the dispute have been accused of violating ethical norms."

I think Rob overstepped the bounds of proper BLP work when he deleted this sentence. It needed revision and tweaking, yes, but it was absolutely not "excessively critical." I have to question whether or not Rob bothered to review the citations before making the decision. Since he does not explain his reasoning in the edit summary, nor in the talk page, it's not possible to know his reasoning; I am having difficulty coming up with a defensible good-faith explanation for this one. Rob is very experienced and does yeoman work for BLP, but no one is above explaining their actions and justifying them under the rules. WP:BLP is clear that critical material is permitted, even necessary for neutral coverage, where it is properly supported. This is such a case. While we have to defend BLPs against all sorts of improprieties, we have to be very careful not to confuse neutrality with a complete lack of criticism, no matter how well-founded. I fear that is happening too often lately. We need to improve BLPs and help people understand what they did that was improper, rather than merely curtly censoring that which we find objectionable. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 02:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

A phrase like [8] "fraudulent,[6] sloppy[7][8] and unethical work,[5] incomplete, unreproducible, and inaccurate results,[7][1] and erroneous interpretations" does strike me as somewhat excessive. The reader will think editors here skimmed the literature and added every unflattering adjective ever published they could find (perish the thought!). Cutting this string of seven adjectives down to three does not make for a "lack of criticism", but seems sensible BLP editing. One might argue that "unethical" should have been one of the three adjectives we retained, but Off2riorob's edits went in the right direction. --JN466 02:49, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I already agree that the phrasing was not up to snuff, and could stand work. I think Rob's version inappropriately minimizes the criticism—it was literally worldwide news at the time, and Pons' entire claim to fame rests largely on the furor that this work created when it was discovered just how poor their science really was. What you're describing isn't a BLP violation, it's a potential WP:UNDUE violation. To me, it's the phrasing, not the actual facts (or words!) that create the potential for undue emphasis in this case. But most of all, making these sweeping edits without explaining them on the talk page is not productive and not good etiquette. Making them without even explaining one's reasoning clearly in the edit summary...? Do that, and you shouldn't be surprised if people get upset. It winds up looking arbitrary and capricious. I'm not saying it was. I'm saying it would look that way. At the very least, it's counterproductive if we're looking to educate people on the BLP rules and encourage constructive, good-faith edits. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 03:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I do read it as a BLP violation. "Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone." Stringing seven adjectives together like that does not comply with that. You can have a good-faith discussion about which adjectives to retain, but BLP does ask us to pare the article back first whenever there is any doubt, and discuss later what to reintroduce. --JN466 03:26, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, but there's the rub: "and discuss later what to reintroduce." There's a distinct lack of discussion going on in this case, at least from the person that did the paring. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 03:31, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The edit only just happened a few hours ago. This board is the right place to discuss it, and as far as I can see, this is exactly what is happening. --JN466 04:10, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You are both barking the wrong tree. After the IP inserted the BLP violation (hoaxer) in version 3. it really does matter how Rob tweaked the rest of the sentence, as he did noting to the violation itself. The real issue should be version 6. i.e. the same as 4. above, where Rob edit warred to re-introduce the violation. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 11:19, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

If I missed a bit of something that also required deleting then you could have removed it with a explanatory edit sumary or explained to me that I had missed a bit, that is a side issue to my two removals. I was only dealing with what I saw as worthy of trimming as undue and you replaced it, claims of fraud when there have been no legal charges are excessive and I removed it again as I am imo required to do. I made two edits, two removals of content I still say is excessive, that is not warring, not by a long margin. Off2riorob (talk) 11:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Undue violations concerning living people are very likely going to be BLP violations. Not necessarily terrible violations but violations. I do believe however the article talk page would be a better place for discussing how to word the sentence but since it's happenning perhaps no point confusing matters. In terms of the wide issue, I don't know if it's helpful to try and assign who should have done what. Clearly both parties thought their version was suitable in accordance to policy but weren't achieving consensus. Some discussion was needed. Who should have initiated it is IMHO largely a moot point. As I remarked elsewhere, from my POV although I'm not an admin it doesn't seem to me what was going on here was really that bad. Discussion earlier may have been ideal but it's not like there were multiple reverts and we have no way of knowing what would have happened if the article hadn't been protected so it's pointless to try and argue there wasn't going to be any discussion. However what's done is done and I also don't see any point unprotecting the article until some edits are needed. Nil Einne (talk) 07:49, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, not a massive blp violation as I said in the edit summary, trim, comments a bit excessive and excessively critical - just because it has been there for a amount of time does not make any difference at all how long its been there. Also just because it is possible to find a lot of critical expressions in cites does not mean we need to include a long list of them, what I left was plenty to get the point across, I also left all the citations in place for people to investigate further while imo not removing and content of any value apart from repeating the same criticisms. I saw the excessive name calling as just a way of saying, his work was rubbish, really rubbish, terrible false rubbish and ow yes, did I tell you how rubbish and wrong his work was? well yes it is really rubbish. Off2riorob (talk) 08:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

This is how it was when I made my edit

After the claims were determined to be unreproducible, the scientific community determined that the pair had engaged in fraudulent,[6] sloppy[7][8] and unethical work,[5] incomplete, unreproducible, and inaccurate results,[7][1] and erroneous interpretations

I found it excessive and especially had blp worries as regards the fraudulent claim and also the erroneous claims and I trimmed it leaving the basic message

After the claims were found to be unreproducible, the scientific community determined the claims were incomplete, unreproducible, and inaccurate[6][7][8][5][7][1]

User Petri K then replaced the fraud accusation and the list of critisisms and claimed he had sorted it ..User:JoshuaZ then commented that he had reservations about the content and that " In this case we should be particularly careful about the "fraud" claim"... When I saw it replaced I simply removed it again, and would have been available for discussion. If there is disputable content with blp issues it is correct to remove it on sight, anyone wanting to keep the fraud claim could have opened dialog with me, personally I see little need for dialog in this case, it appears clear to me, no part of the detail has been lost and our content is a bit more reflective of a middle of the road position, imo closer to NPOV and more compliant in regard to BLP. Also for user:cirt refering to these two edits of mine as gratuitously engaging in disruptive editing on Wikipedia - Is a bigger blp violation than the fraud claim in the article. Off2riorob (talk) 09:28, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

This is totally irrelevant. we are not discussing your edit on 7 October 2010 (number 4 on my list above), but the fact that you edit warred to reintroduce your version of the BLP violation. The violation is originally in the edit by the IP editor (number 3.) that claims that the "scientific community determined" Pons to be a hoaxer. This is not supported by science, even less by the sources used, as demonstrated by Macwhiz above. Whatever you did to the sentence afterwards is of little importance; in my opinion your edits only collaborated to the damage, at least as much as they made it more difficult to recover the original stable and sourced version.

On the issue of cold fusion: While it is difficult for cold fusion supporters to introduce reliable sources for their point-of-view that cold fusion exists, it is a non sequitur to claim that science has proven cold fusion to not exists. In fact, there are no reliable scientific sources to support such a claim. Cold fusion is fringe science, mainstream science does not need to say anything on the subject. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 12:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Reply to pertri k claims my comments are irrelevant and his yet again undue accusations that I was warring - There is no such thing as a stable version. As for the pons is a hoaxer, Thats fine, we can simply replace that it is only a claim. It is not even a big issue, the scientific community claims it was a hoax, easy to correct and hardly an excessive difference. Off2riorob (talk) 12:13, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Is it correct to say that we only disagree on one issue .. You support this portrayal of the living person .. After the claims were determined to be unreproducible, the scientific community determined that the pair had engaged in fraudulent,[6] sloppy[7][8] and unethical work,[5] incomplete, unreproducible, and inaccurate results,[7][1] and erroneous interpretations - and I think it is excessive and undue and have trimmed it twice. Just as a disclaimer, I have no opinions about cold fusion or fringe science at all, I just don't care, my two edits were just to remove what I saw as undue and excessive listing of negative terms that could be removed without losing the point and I went there in response to a BLP thread asking for assistance. Off2riorob (talk) 12:21, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Rob, I think part of the problem is that you're concentrating mainly on that latter half of the sentence, but the initial BLP complaint was actually about the initial part: "the scientific community determined". That statement isn't supported by the references, so that part of the statement needs to be changed. Krohn's version of that part of the sentence is more accurate and better keeping with BLP. I agree with you that piling the bare words into one sentence isn't good; it doesn't supply enough context to be balanced. However, most of those terms are used consistently and repeatedly in reliable sources to describe the subject, so it's reasonable to include them in some fashion. My preference would be to expand this a bit and use short quotations to provide context for these claims. I'm not saying "turn it into an attack page," but these guys are infamous for this very reason, and glossing over the degree and volume of criticism they received wouldn't be NPOV. I think the concern here is that BLP/N was asked to review one thing, and the editors of that page perceive that we ignored their concern and went our own way, inadvertently making the article less accurate as a result. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 14:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem about someone edit requesting that revert. I missed that part, but my two edits were both made in good faith and are no excuse to attack me and misrepresent me as warring. As for the other issue, the list of , well basically attack type list of critical comments, is imo undue and a few other users here have opined the same thing. This the claims were incomplete, unreproducible, and inaccurate that I left is to the uninvolved eye, total criticism of the work, I just removed the undue excessive additions that were closer to insults and slurs and left the rejection of their work' Off2riorob (talk) 14:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• I agree. Petri Krohn's concern seems to have been, disregarding for the moment the question of the adjectives, the change from "Those that failed to reproduce the claim attacked the pair" to "After the claims were determined to be unreproducible, the scientific community determined that the pair ..." --JN466 14:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• - I have left an edit request to address this issue on the talkpage here - Off2riorob (talk) 16:16, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

edit request was objected to by user Petri Krohn. - Off2riorob (talk) 22:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Source wording

• It may help editors to look at what the Oxford University Press (ref. 5, Adil E. Shamoo, David B. Resnik (2003). Oxford University Press US (ed.). Responsible Conduct of Research (2, illustrated ed.). ISBN 0195148460.) book actually says about this case. It is considerably more nuanced, and I believe it is within the bounds of Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_States_law to reproduce the following brief excerpts here, in a non-profit educational project, in aid of scholarship and research:

Source quote

Stanley Pons, chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Utah, and Martin Fleischmann, a chemistry professor at Southampton University, announced their results at a press conference on March 23, 1989 in Salt Lake City, Utah. They claimed to have produced nuclear fusion at room temperatures using equipment available in most high school laboratories. Researchers around the world rushed to try to replicate these results, but the Utah press release did not provide adequate information to replicate these results. Pons and Fleischmann made their announcement to ensure that they would not be scooped by other research groups in the race for priority, and to protect their pending patent claims. As mentioned above, other researchers failed to replicate their work, and mainstream physicists came to regard their work as “careless,” “irresponsible,” or simply “loony.” Although cold fusion research continues to this day, and Pons, Fleischmann, and others continue to publish results, the cold fusion community has become isolated from the traditional fusion community. In retrospect, one wonders whether this press conference actually hindered the cause of cold fusion by calling too much attention to the subject before the work was adequately peer reviewed. If the work had been published in a low-profile physics journal and others with an interest in the subject had reviewed the work in an orderly fashion, then cold fusion research could still have been regarded as controversial but not “irresponsible” or “loony.” Fleischmann (2000) considered this option and favored delayed publication in an obscure journal. (p. 86, not p. 76 as stated in our reference). In 1989 Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons of the University of Utah reported that they observed a greater production of energy (in the form of excess heat) from an electrolytic cell at room temperature than would be produced through electrical or chemical reactions. [...] What is even more remarkable about Fleischmann and Pons's result is that gamma rays were not emitted but heat was. In a similar experiment, Steven Jones of Brigham Young University announced (almost simultaneously) that with a similar apparatus he had observed neutrons but no excess heat. Fleischmann and Pons, due to pressures from university administrators, announced their findings at a news conference, as did Jones. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funded Jones's research on the subject. Prior to the news conference, Pons had submitted a grant application to the DOE. [...] As one can imagine, this case drew a great deal of attention from the media [...] hundreds of scientists all across the world tried to repeat the experiment. Claims were made daily and weekly concerning the reproducibility of the experiment. However, more often claims were made that the experiments were not reproducible. Those who could not reproduce the experiments often described the work of Fleischmann and Pons and of Jones as unethical, and sloppy. Unfortunately, in this case the process of scientific research failed in many ways. Many different parties on all sides of this dispute violated ethical norms. These transgressors included university administrators who attempted to lay claim to research findings and potential funds through newspapers and headlines; researchers who cut corners to prove their points and gain recognition and priority; researchers who were quick to denounce their peers and insinuate misconduct; journalists who assumed the worst; journalists who beamed with naive credulity; journal editors who became censors for one side or another; reviewers who divulged confidential information; federal grant administrators who decided funding based on public perceptions; researchers who failed to cite accurately the work of others; and universities that violated academic freedom. The parties demonstrated a lack of civility, respect for individuals, respect for society, and respect for science. The obvious violations of ethical norms began when the University of Utah announced the findings of Fleischmann and Pons at a news conference. The announcement was made presumably to protect intellectual property for the university and the inventors, so these parties may have had a conflict of interest. Fleischmann and Pons contributed to these violations through their enthusiasm at the news conference. Moreover, the inventors were not immediately forthcoming with details. The original article submitted for publication by Fleischmann and Pons was leaked and distributed all across the world. Thus, the editors of the journal as well as countless individuals violated ethical norms of confidentiality in peer review. This case illustrates the need for better methods to differentiate scientific misconduct from errors and honest disagreement. It also illustrates ethical problems with disseminating scientific results in the media before they have been reviewed by peers for quality and consistency (Resnik 1996c, 1998a) (p. 97-98). --JN466 14:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Dae Gak

It is noted on Dae Gak's page that he received disciplinary action from the Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychology however the context of this unclear and I do not believe that it belongs in the article without a better citation. I have posted the discussion of this on Dae Gak's talk page. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks much. --UhOhFeeling (talk) 20:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotected it during this period of discussion. -- Cirt (talk) 21:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm starting to think that posting on these things never actually accomplishes anything. Am I doing something wrong?--UhOhFeeling (talk) 17:21, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The assertion is sourced to a State of Kentucky web site that lets you search for licensing disciplinary actions. The link doesn't take you to the subject's information; it takes you to the search form. Being a search engine, it seems to me it violates WP:ELNO #9. Further, the results only tell you that a disciplinary action was taken; it does not say what action, why it was taken, or when it was taken. You have to pay to get documents from the state for that. As such, it's not possible to tell if the claim is notable or relevant. I'm being charitable and assuming the looser restrictions of WP:WELLKNOWN could apply, rather than WP:NPF; in either case, the current sourcing is inadequate. If the source stated clearly the details of the disciplinary action, it's possible it could be a statement worthy of inclusion, but definitely not a sure thing. I've removed the statement as a BLP violation until appropriate consensus is reached. Jikaku (talk · contribs) has started an RfC about this on the article's talk page. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 18:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Chris Marr

Chris Marr

Chris Marr (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - This article has been repeatedly edited to include a Criticism and Controversy section. This section references just one link . This reference does not include all the quotes used in the section and does not support all claims used in the section. The combined effect of undocumented claims in the section is distinctly negative, and editors may be attempting to influence Chris Marr's current re-election campaign. Revision history shows multiple attempts to prevent neutral coverage of the incident and to eliminate expanded coverage of Chris Marr's life. Examples below: Removal of expanded biography and political information, reinstatement of biased section Removal of attempt at more neutral, accurate reporting of source information

I am reinstating Bonne's more neutral reporting of source material as well as expanded coverage of chris marr's biography and political views until this issue is addressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wxfst (talk • contribs)

Welcomed the user that made this complaint. Semiprotected the page during BLPN discussion. -- Cirt (talk) 22:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Matt Pinfield

216.221.84.22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) made this edit to Soul Asylum and then this edit to Matt Pinfield. The Soul Asylum edit was quickly reverted but the edit to Matt Pinfield was not reverted for over a week. I reverted and put a simple vandalism warning up but shouldn't a more stronger warning be added. I'm not sure what is appropriate in this situation. XinJeisan (talk) 00:03, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

If this is not the proper forum to bring this issue to please let me know where I should. Thanks XinJeisan (talk) 00:09, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, this is a good enough place as any. Your note was fine, if it was to continue then further Administrative action would be required. I don't think he will come back under that IP I have watch -listed the BLP/. I personally think adding the death of a living person can be upsetting to the subjects and his family and should be acted on strongly.Off2riorob (talk) 12:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Alan Dubin

• Alan Dubin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• MMNJ (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I recently noticed that the user MMNJ added some information to the article Alan Dubin that seemed like it could potentially be vandalism (the edit is here.) I looked into some of the user's recent edits on that article and found another that could be construed as vandalism (here), but I figured I'd just undo the edit and that would be that. The user returned the edit, so I left him a message on his talk page saying info on BLPs need to be sourced, at which point I noticed I've had interaction with this user on this article before (although it's been over a year, apparently.) The user ignored my message and has returned the edit again. I don't know if it's vandalism or not, so I didn't want to treat it as such (although I can't find any sources for it), and given my previous interactions with this user on this article, I'd rather if someone else could handle this issue. Thanks. Rnb (talk) 23:56, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Done, and tomorrow i`m posting at SPI as this guy has socks all over that article mark nutley (talk) 00:14, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! Rnb (talk) 00:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Done: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MMNJ. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Bob Geldof

There is a dispute between myself and another editor User:Rodhullandemu about whether it's appropiate to include a brief (reliably sourced) mention of his sister's death in the article. Opinions? Exxolon (talk) 00:56, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

It is breaking news, it ought to be left out until bob makes a statement about it really mark (talk) 08:48, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what Rodhullandemu said. This doesn't really relate that much to Geldof himself and doesn't seem necessary to put in there. Kansan (talk) 15:45, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Acey Aquino

Would someone have a look at whatever is going on at Acey Aquino, an unsourced biography of a 16 year old Filipina actress that is been stubbed by User:Pleasedeleteaceyaquino. I'm unable to verify that this person has appeared in the films and tv programmes listed and I wonder if it's a hoax. Note that the two external links are broken or non-existent. Thanks, Jon 217.43.240.23 (talk) 19:26, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Well she exists, i`m looking for sources and have found a few, so not a hoax mark (talk) 19:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Then again maybe not, all the sources seem to be wiki clones. I can`t find anything about this person at all mark (talk) 19:46, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Yelena Dembo again

I've got IP-hopping vandals continuing to make unsourced defamatory allegations against her, such that I've semi-protected both the page and the talk page. Additional ideas welcome, but mostly just posting this for notice. Jclemens (talk) 19:51, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Greydon Square

Is there a problem with including Eddie Collin's (aka Greydon Square's) role in the gun scare at Mesa Community College? It was very notable in the East Valley, with a campus (attempt at a) lock-down and people worried of a school shooting. Then, the aftermath resulting in a review of school security and played an important role in the debate over arming the school police at one of the largest community colleges in the United States. But yet, every time something about legal issues is added, it ends up removed again, typically by ip's in DC in the past, but now it varies though they typically have few, if any, other edits. The time before last it seemed to be removed because of the sources, so I added it back with updated sources, and corrected the errors in the information, but it was removed again, this time without explanation. 70.166.206.135 (talk) 04:48, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotected the page during this period of report at BLPN. -- Cirt (talk) 04:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Query: Have you tried to engage in discussion with those that removed it, via posting to their user talk pages? And also to the article's talk page? -- Cirt (talk) 04:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Spearmint Rhino

• Spearmint Rhino (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article currently has assertions about a man who started a strip club business. Another editor (who was recently blocked for creating an attack page on the man) pointed out that the article frequently gives unreferenced notes about the name of someone who started a business. This needs to be fixed, and I'm too slow with writing to do so myself. Magog the Ogre (talk) 17:51, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• I have removed the blatant BLP violations and various other unsourced stuff. mark nutley (talk) 21:34, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Ironically, your "massive BLP violations", from Max Clifford's involvement to the governmental licensing questions, are in fact verifiable:
    • Nicola Formby (2002-08-03). "So what's wrong with lap-dancing?". London Evening Standard.
    • Keith Dovkants (2002-06-02). "Lap dancing: behind the scenes". London Evening Standard.
    • Jennifer Kabat (2000-05-10). "G-strings at dawn for strippers". London Evening Standard.
    • "TV review". The Stage. 2006-07-03.
    • Christopher Hope (2008-11-25). "Peter Stringfellow says lap dancing clubs are no more erotic than a disco". The Daily Telegraph.
  • Indeed, the edit that added the less promotional part of the content explicitly told us where this information came from.

    The real problem, as can be seen by comparing the aforecited sources with the content that you edited, is that the article was casting Spearmint Rhino as some sort of hero of the entire affair, when what sources there are on this generally don't make such a judgement. But given the nature of the organization and the fact that it does verifiably employ PR companies, I am not surprised that a single-purpose account named after the organization's owner added the puffery (although it seems exceedingly unlikely that that account is in fact M. Gray himself, and I'm thinking of a username block).

    Magog the Ogre, John Gray's name is amply verifiable. Start with page 158 of ISBN 9780415283458 (which, aside from showing in its own citations how many more sources there are on this, shows us exactly how impoverished our article is). Uncle G (talk) 14:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Gurudom?

Somehow I surfed to "Bob Greene (fitness guru)". I'm surprised to see somebody referred to in all seriousness here as a "guru": my impression was that the denotation of "guru" was a person of extraordinary wisdom, and the connotation was a fraud (often from south Asia) of extraordinary wealth gained from his credulous followers. The former looks like unencyclopedic puffery, the latter like a "BLP violation" (at least until the particular person is indicted and convicted of something). However, I hesitate to rename the article partly because I don't know how best to rename it and partly because I suspect that, while I wasn't looking, "XYZ guru" may have come to mean "somebody who sounds off on XYZ on TV talk shows" (rather as "legendary" has come to mean "at least moderately well known"). Comments? -- Hoary (talk) 10:06, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Moved it to just "Bob Greene (fitness)", removing the "guru" part, from the page title. Tagged page with {{refimproveBLP}}, as it could use sourcing improvements. -- Cirt (talk) 10:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Well done! Incidentally, I saw that the disambig page referred to him as a "fitness expert". We don't normally call a speaker/writer on, say, architecture an "architecture expert" -- it would seem to confer the Wikipedia Seal of Approval (for what that's worth) on somebody whose writings might later be shown up as hollow or anyway not all that good. (And something tells me that vapid pseudo-expertise might be more widespread in utterances on "fitness" than in those on architecture.) So I took out the mention of expertise. I wonder how much more there is of similar puffery in this great encyclopedia. -- Hoary (talk) 11:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Hoary (talk · contribs), I appreciate your kind words about my efforts in response to this issue at BLPN. -- Cirt (talk) 11:41, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Sandra Lee (cook)

I just removed some very petty negative remarks from this article. I have a feeling they will soon be put back however. I don't think everything that is sourced needs to be said, especially in such a short article about such a minor person. There is also a "Critical reviews" section with only one review, which is quoted at length and is very negative. If only one review could be found I think that shows how minor the person really is. Of course things have sources but still the effect is to make it look like a hit piece. Wolfview (talk) 13:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected the page. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 13:54, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Wolfview (talk) 14:02, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

The issue itself appears to be a content dispute. Suggest engaging in discussion on the article's talk page. If that does not resolve the matter, recommend pursuing WP:Dispute resolution, perhaps in the form of WP:Third opinion or WP:Request for comment - either of which could then take place at the article's talk page in a new subsection. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 14:03, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Talk page discussions are going on.Wolfview (talk) 14:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I've expanded the section to be more balanced. Sandra Lee isn't "minor" by any stretch of the imagination; she's a very well-known television cooking celebrity. As for the article being critical of Lee, the fact is that criticism of Lee's cooking slightly outweighs the praise for it in reliable sources. Per WP:WELLKNOWN, our article has to reflect that in order to be neutral. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 03:50, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Need some advice on Kevin Hart (poet)

So much ado about one poet/theologian...There's a lot of background; let me try to sum up:

1. A long time ago, the article was NPOV, in a negative sense.
2. Involved parties (either Hart himself, but more likely his associates and graduate students) began editing the article to "fix" the problems, along with filing OTRS (which were handled by User:Ironholds).
3. Ironholds, because of the OTRS and edit warring, eventually made the declaration found at Talk:Kevin Hart#Attention, all editors--a "neutral" version was restored, 1RR was imposed, NPOV editing strictly required. User:NuclearWarfare was the admin who agreed to watch over the article.
4. Myself and others argued that the "neutral" version was just as NPOV as before, except in the opposite direction (being a praise of Hart with no negative criticism, which did not seem to match the sources we had).
5. I volunteered to clean everything up as best as I could, which I did in my userspace; after it was completed, Ironholds approved replacing the puffery with what seemed to be a truly neutral version. We had a few weeks of stability.
6. Suddenly, a group of entirely "new" users, User:Max kovacs, User:Librarianguy, and User:Luxetveritas7 appeared ), and made massive changes to the article--removing about 40% of what was there, then more than doubling the article size after that, leaving us with another significantly NPOV (this time, puffery) piece. These users have never edited any other article, and were immediately making changes that showed significant sophistication and familiarity with the subject. These changes must have been prepared ahead of time, because there were instances of many thousands of characters of additions,vincluding sources, to the article being made within minutes of an account being created.
7. At first I started reverting those edits, but then recalled 1RR, and pulled back.
8. Over the past few weeks, I've been slowly making incremental changes (shortening quotes, re-inserting removed sources, removing unreliable sources, etc.). Each time I made changes I documented my logic in edit summaries and more fully on the article talk page.
9. Today/yesterday, again, another new user arrived (User:Phainein), making the same massive POV edits.
10. At no time in this process has any of the "new" editors ever made any comments on the article's talk page, nor have they responded to any requests made on their own talk page.

I don't know what to do next. Its frustrating to make incremental, fully explained changes to an article, then have a group of non-collaborators suddenly add another dozen sentences which need work. In addition, User:NuclearWarfare has just temporarily relinquished use of his admin tools, so I can't ask for help from that side. I'm looking for help, suggestions, etc.

Regarding the other 4 editors....I don't know if they're the same person. Based on the way they at times edit each other's work, I'm inclined to believe that they are actually more than one human being. However, it seems abundantly clear to me that they're all working together closely. I'm further inclined to believe that they are closely related to the subject (they've called him "Professor Hart", and one recently mentioned in an edit summary that they "heard" he's changing citizenship soon). If I had to guess, I'd say these are his graduate students, or possibly close colleagues. I have no idea if an SPI and/or Checkuser is appropriate in this issue, and welcome other people's opinions on that, too. I also don't know if Page Protection is appropriate either. I'm too close to the matter, such that I can't stomach asking for protection now while the page is, in my opinion, such a mess, and with almost no hope of the other editors joining a conversation on talk anyway, but I also don't want to make the obviously biased step of reverting to one of my preferred versions (even one of the more recent ones that's still NPOV but at least a little better) and then asking for protection.

Advice? Help? Other eyes? Qwyrxian (talk) 01:57, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

update: the newest editor (Phainean) is now engaging in discussion. Of course, I'm still open to more input. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:49, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Victor C. X. Wang (closed)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Resolved

 – Article deleted via AfD process. ⌘macwhiz (talk) 02:33, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Victor_C._X._Wang (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This might be better posted on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. Cxw888 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to have written an article about himself. While I originally listed the article as not conforming with notable persons guidelines, an admin seems to believe that it does. While there are references listed at the bottom of the article, non of the information contained in it appears to be cited at all and the references seem to be scholarly works that would not contain information regarding the individual. The same IP addresses appear to be removing the issue and deletion reports. Overall, the article appears to be less of a wikipedia article and more of personally written biography. What can be done?

First, I detected no BLP issues here. Nothing negative or harmful is said. Second, Someone (probably the subject) has removed your PROD notices which is acceptable. It indicates that they disagree with you. Please note that you should not replace a PROD notice once removed [9]. Now, if you are concerned that the references are bogus, please bring forth your evidence. If you really think the article should go you could take it to AFD. JodyB _talk 18:15, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I have listed this at AfD; see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Victor C. X. Wang. Jody is right that PRODs can't be replaced when removed, but it made sense for User:Digitizednomad to bring this wider attention. Chick Bowen 00:06, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The subject of the article Cxw888 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) keeps removing the AfD banner from the article and replacing it with complaints. I've given him a few warnings on his talk page; would an admin please keep an eye on this and take necessary action if he keeps vandalizing the page? // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 17:45, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The page has been semiprotected. The user was already blocked once for disruptive editing, further behavior pattern again would result in a longer block. -- Cirt (talk) 21:24, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, after I posted here, the user got sufficiently out of hand that I took it to AN3 for that block; hopefully when it expires, he'll bother to read some of the advice and instructions sent his way beforehand...! Thanks for checking. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 21:28, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome! The "thank you" is most appreciated! ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 21:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Now that the block has expired, Cxw888 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) went right back to making his tendentious edits. At least it looks like he's trying to add references. (Given that he claims to write textbooks, I sure hope he just isn't trying hard on Wikipedia, because so far his comprehension, research, and citation skills fail to impress me.) I give up; I'm hoping that the AfD for this article passes to end this. I've requested that the page be salted if the AfD passes. I've also added a fairly lengthy {{Multiple issues}} in hopes that it will catch his attention and at least direct his efforts more productively. The page is still iffy where BLP is concerned, but considering any reputational damage would be purely self-inflicted at this point... *shrug* It's up to the admin types if they'd like to play whack-a-mole with this fellow or just wait out the AfD. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 03:39, 11 October 2010 (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.

Harold Lewis

Harold Lewis - Another one caught up in the climate change minefield. Recently created article but I just removed the claim this guy who appears to have done quite a lot in his life became famous because of a letter. [10] Mention of the letter may belong, but I couldn't work out how to include it. I'm guessing this is going to get a wave of action over the current days. Edit: I wonder if the whole article should be deleted and we start again. Basically the entire thing appears to have been a copyvio. Nil Einne (talk) 18:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

"Caught up in" may misrepresent his position, as in July 2009 he was a signatory to a letter opposing what it called "climate alarmism" and claiming that the Earth had been cooling for ten years,[11] though his name doesn't seem to have made the mainstream press.[12] (Boston Globe opinion column). His biographical details, including his birth year of 1923, are given here, with a link to this interview. The recent letter confirms his opposition to current climate science, but in a rather different style to that shown in the interview – he presumably would meet notability standards, but we should think of waiting for better sources than the current rash of blogs, including at least one newsblog (from a columnist with a poor reputation for science reporting) exploiting his name to oppose mainstream climate change science. . . dave souza, talk 19:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh I'm not denying he has involved himself. It doesn't however mean he would want to be memorised on wikipedia primarily as someone who opposed climate change. Nil Einne (talk) 12:21, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected the page during this ongoing cleanup. -- Cirt (talk) 20:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

• Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Volunteers are invited to take part in a discussion of how to rewrite the section on Lord Monckton's climate science activism.

See Talk:Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley#Drafting a section on climate science activism. An earlier section on the same page, "Principles for a re-write", discusses the concerns that need to be addressed.

Please note that the climate change arbitration, which is about to conclude today, contains several remedies relevant to this article. In particular:

All users are reminded that as stated in the verifiability policy and reliable source guideline, blogs and self-published sources in any media may be used as references only in very limited circumstances, typically articles about the blog or source itself. Neither blogs nor self-published sources may be used as sources of material about living people unless the material has been published by the article's subject (in which case special rules apply).

and

Editors and administrators are reminded of the stringent requirements of the biography of living persons policy, particularly the importance of proper sourcing, disinterested and neutral tone, and ensuring that information added is specific to the subject of the article and given the correct weighting within the article. Edit-warring, poor-quality sourcing, unsourced negative or controversial information, inclusion within the article of material more appropriate for a different article, and unbalanced coverage within the article, are unacceptable. Similarly, material about living people placed into other articles should be held to the same high standards of sourcing, tone, relevance and balance.

The article is fully protected until 29 November 2010 due to earlier disputes which have been handled by arbcom by a combination of guidance and topic bans. --TS 14:36, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Rinat Akhmetov

Rinat Akhmetov (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) I've just fully protected this article after coming across a dispute between IPs and established editors over the inclusion or otherwise of material which claims the subject is connected to organised crime. I'd appreciate more eyes on it to figure out of the claims belong in the article and whether the protection is necessary. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:16, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I added a bit of the disputed information and requested the help on this article. 1 piece was from a previous established editor who was being reverted, my additions to the lead and the "organized crime" section were supported by news, journal, and government reports. All of these references were being reverted and called "libel". I guess it would be helpful to get a fresh set of eyes on the article to clear this up. Thanks. --Львівське (talk) 00:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Nobody seems to want to discuss this, can an admin please undo this lock down? HJ Mitchell seems to have ignored the issue, basic wiki-etiquette, and rewarded the vandals, which is just ass-backwards by admin standards. Little help?--Львівське (talk) 22:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

David Miscavige

I removed an entire WP:COATRACK paragraph about Tom Cruise and Mark Rathbun that didn't mention Miscavige once. Article may still need a look over. --JN466 03:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

It deals directly with the subject of the article. It is direct context for issues pertaining to all three individuals. -- Cirt (talk) 03:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Cirt has reverted the edit, reintroducing the paragraph. --JN466 03:56, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

The paragraph reads:

• The nature of what was discussed in the confessional sessions by Cruise was not revealed.[45][46][47] Rathbun ceased the filming of Cruise in 2002, because he felt it was unethical.[41] Rathbun left the organization in 2004, and since then has given counselling to former members of Scientology.[40][42] In a post on his blog, Rathbun wrote a statement addressed to Cruise, "Wake up, Tom. It is not too late. Though, time is getting very, very short."[39][40] As of May 9, 2010, representatives for Cruise had not yet responded to the statements made by Rathbun.[40][42][43] --JN466 03:58, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Update: I have now removed the paragraph myself. Removed the entire paragraph, save for one sentence. See diff link. Noted as well, at Talk:David Miscavige, as we appear to be having identical simultaneous threads in both locations. Perhaps this can be marked as resolved, as there is now no objection to the material removed by Jayen466 (talk · contribs) from the article page. Thanks, -- Cirt (talk) 03:58, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• While we're here, it would be useful for outside eyes to look through the article to make sure it's fully BLP-compliant. Miscavige is probably not one of our most popular BLP subjects, but we should still take care that we have a decent article on him. --JN466 04:11, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

So ... any comment on my agreement, and specifically this edit in attempt to go along with sentiment expressed by Jayen466 and remove the paragraph he had questioned? -- Cirt (talk) 04:13, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• Note: This article did indeed exist in a poor state of quality in the past. Over time, I had put forth a bit of effort, to improve the overall quality of the page. Admin John Carter (talk · contribs) stated of those efforts after I posted a query to the talk page of the article for input on additional WP:RS sources to utilize in the article, "The RS I know of are already used in the article. Good job on working to improve the article." ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 11:02, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Update: I removed yet more sourced info still, from that same subsection raised above in the initial complaint by Jayen466 (talk · contribs), see diff link. Also, after that, I did some additional research in secondary sources, and added a bit more info to the article, standardized references present in the article did some copyediting, formatted paragraphs, and added some additional material which reflects positively on the subject of the BLP article, see diff link. ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 13:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• It looks to have improved quite a bit since this was originally posted but I'm not the one to ask for a full review of any article ;) so it would be nice if someone with more experience on that gave it a once or twice over to see what they thought. James (T C) 04:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Jamesofur (talk · contribs), for your comment about my recent efforts to improve the quality of the article. Most appreciated. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 04:26, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

• Update: And now some critics offsite view my work on the article as too positive, see forums.whyweprotest.net and forum.exscn.net. Sigh, oh well, guess I can't please everybody. :P Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 09:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

• haha that is rich indeed, considering between your work at The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power and WP:ARBSCI. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 13:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment about my Featured Article-contributions to Wikipedia. It is most appreciated. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 19:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

• I think it all has to go, I see an allegation about a Living person that is near impossible to substantate one way or the other thus i think its a BLP to include it. I think these two paragraphs would be more appropriate at Rathburns article that he made these allegations against Miscavage. Right now these allegations are not even mentioned at his. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 13:45, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Rathbun was for many years the second-in-command of Scientology, directly under David Miscavige. Per WP:WELLKNOWN, If the Vice President of the United States made similar statements, subsequently reported in multiple secondary sources, about the President of the United States, it would most certainly be mentioned in both articles. -- Cirt (talk) 19:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Its not the allegations that bother me, its the undue wight in BLP both sets of allegations seem to be given more weight than arguably is due. I am not arguing it be removed but substantially Trimmed. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 20:58, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright. I trimmed down the size of the sect. I removed a chunk of sourced info from the paragraphs. It is now significantly smaller in size. See diff link. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 21:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanx that looks alot better :-) The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 00:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome. Thank you for being diligent about checking back in this thread, and responding to me. I appreciate that. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 00:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

• I've done some work on the article; a number of things were mentioned twice in different places, but I think it is not in too bad shape now. Thanks. --JN466 23:46, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Jayen466 (talk · contribs), for acknowledging my efforts to improve the quality of the BLP page. Much appreciated. -- Cirt (talk) 00:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I do appreciate your efforts, both here and elsewhere; it's good to see these articles becoming more mature and balanced. It reflects well on Wikipedia if we can have a decent, BLP-compliant article on someone like Miscavige. Let's hope we can manage the same for global warming sceptics ... if you have time and inclination, perhaps you could keep an eye on the Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley BLP talk page. Different topic, but similarly hard to write neutrally. Cheers, --JN466 02:51, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It is most appreciated that you have said I have contributed to making these articles more mature and balanced. Thank you for acknowledging my efforts. -- Cirt (talk) 04:48, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Mass killings under Communist regimes

Currently has an interesting issue. Does [13] which deals with a living person (Rummel) reach a level of synthesis regarding him entailing WP:BLP concerns? The edit at issue is:

Linking communist ideology to mass killings became a recurring theme in Cold War anti-communists propaganda. Some scholars, most notably R. J. Rummel have expressed similar views. with the edit summary Cold War anti-communists propaganda.

Does this assert that R.J. Rummel (alive, as I understand it) purveys "anti-communist propaganda" (which I take to be a pejorative claim)? Is this "contentious"? Is placing the claim one which requires a specific RS source? Does the second sentence stand on its own and not complete a SYNTHesis regarding Rummel? Would BLP require a specific source stating the "similar views" bit? Thanks! Collect (talk) 19:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

If Rummel does in fact deal with the topic, that could probably be phrased better, but not a big deal. On the other hand, anything with an ASIN without an ISBN is somewhat suspect as a reliable source. Saying Rummel says the same thing as anti-communists do isn't a major BLP issue per se, but still needs to be cited. Jclemens (talk) 20:05, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

And the implicit claim that only anti-communist propagandists linked communist regimes to mass killings? Collect (talk) 20:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how that follows in the text. The edit summary, yes, but that's a summary. Jclemens (talk) 20:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe Collect means this anti-communists propaganda.[1] Some scholars, most notably R. J. Rummel have expressed similar views it obviously implies rummel puts out anti-communists propaganda mark (talk) 20:31, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Not to people who actually can parse that logically it doesn't. All it says is that some scholars, including Rummel, "have expressed similar views". Big deal. Feminists and fundamentalists express similar views on human trafficking. Jclemens (talk) 20:36, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Scott Crookes

• Scott Crookes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - This is an article about an individual which appears to have been written by his mates(?) on his rugby team. The article is very obviously a hoax and should have been CSD'ed. The article is now at AFD but I believe it should be speedily deleted as per WP:SNOW. Could an admin have a look at this and maybe close the discussion and delete the article early? GainLine ♠ _♥ 19:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Deleted clear BLP violations in the interim. Collect (talk) 19:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

And deleted the article. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Salted it. -- Cirt (talk) 06:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Ryan Leaf‎

There's an alligation from Sports Illustrated that Leaf did something, but it's just an alligation, on one story. I keep reverting citing WP:BLP, but I keep getting reverted back. Can some one chime in please. Secret ^account 22:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Now of course the mainstream media (mostly blogs) is using the one source as a story. So it's still an BLP violation Secret ^account 22:35, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I removed the sentence, as BLP policy says to do when the material is negative and poorly cited. A dozen poor citations (repeating an allegation) do not add up to one good citation. Wolfview (talk) 18:34, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Well you got reverted, I reverted back, i need more eyes, I'll think he's willing to violate 3RR for that material anyways. Secret ^account 02:14, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Full-protected it. Users should discuss on talk page, and possibly engage in WP:Dispute resolution, perhaps such as WP:RFC. -- Cirt (talk) 06:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for protecting it, Leaf is a target of a bunch of BLP violations, being considered one of the worst football players ever to play in the league, it needs to be watchlisted by all you guys. Secret ^account 01:31, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Subject of article prefers a different romanization

Hi,

there is an ongoing discussion over at Talk:Ganhuyag Chuluun Hutagt. A user who says he is the subject of the article says he prefers a slightly different romanization and a somewhat non-standard order of his names. He also gave some evidence about what rendering of his name Mr. Ganhuyag prefers. I have moved the article to the name that the user wanted for now, but I wonder if there is some guideline for cases like this, and if not, if there should be. Yaan (talk) 16:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

If no one objects and there's a redirect from the "more standard" Romanization, I don't see why it would be a big deal. Jclemens (talk) 16:26, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I would think that would be normal practice, to refer to someone by the name they use. Wolfview (talk) 18:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Right, with redirect(s) from a legal name to a preferred, common, or professional name as appropriate. C.f. Gordon Sumner Jclemens (talk) 18:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, our practice is to use the name by which they are commonly known, if there is such a name, regardless of the subject's preferences. Among other things, we use Western name order unless the subject is otherwise known under a different order.--Orange Mike | Talk 19:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The "commonly known" version is ambivalent both in english and in Mongolian (iow. both version appear similarly often). The subject now seems to have entered the discussion himself (probably alarmed by staff/friends who mistook Wikipedia for an advertizing avenue) claiming that he prefers the unusual version himself. Such a preference does indeed seem to exist (reflected eg. in the subject's blog). I had renamed the article to the standard form as of WP:MON, but if the evidence for self-perference and/or commonality satisfies the more general common practise, I won't object to the non-standard form. The COI issues need to be dealt with seperately. --Latebird (talk) 09:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anything in the Mongolian naming guidelines to support your claim we use the 'Western' name order in fact quite the opposite. It's definitely not a wikipedia wide policy for all people. While for Japanese (and I think Hungarian) it is the norm to use the given name family name in English sources for whatever strange reason, a practice we therefore follow and reflect in the MOS. It's not usually the norm for many Chinese not living in countries which follow that order, and this includes Chinese in places like HK, Malaysia and Singapore with significant English speaking populations so wikipedia follows that norm, which is again reflected in the MOS. The same for Koreans and Vietnamese. (The norms BTW are mostly explained in the article you linked to although it doesn't tell us what the MOS says of course). Nil Einne (talk) 19:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree that English name order does not seem very relevant here, in fact the Mongolian government has been, in the past, somewhat unsure about what part of a Mongolian name constitutes a "family" itself. Probably one of Mr. Ganhuyag's older passports had "Ganhuyag" as family name, while his current one most likely has "Chuluun". Yaan (talk) 11:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it is best to consider the subject's preferred spelling a Nom de plume. There are no western style family names in Mongolia, and he is creatively deploying the normally purely symbolical clan name (historical of self-styled) in its place. Actually, the chosen form most closely resembles the Russian tradition with first name, patronym, and familyname. --Latebird (talk) 12:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

AJede(Kaloosh)

This was (possibly accidentally) mis-placed biographical content purported to be about one "Gerald William Makokola Nkhoma Junior", written by Keokemashoeshoe (talk · contribs).

I've blanked it. Uncle G (talk) 01:12, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Sarah Linda

Sarah Linda (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Is this relevant for a Wikipedia insertion - is this just not pure advertising - there is nothing notable about this person —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.183.166 (talk) 00:19, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

It is referenced somewhat, seems fair and certainly not to extravagant. This seems to apply from wp:blp

"Living persons may publish material about themselves, such as through press releases or personal websites. Such material may be used as a source only if—

it is not unduly self-serving;

it does not involve claims about third parties;

it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;

there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity;

the article is not based primarily on such sources."

Therefore, I would let it stand. Bluebadger1 (talk) 02:29, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Dodgy redirect to Peter Mandelson

Resolved

 – deleted by Admin Frank - Off2riorob (talk) 20:17, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I found this redirect at Rfd. In brief: Darth Mandelson redirects to Peter Mandelson, the British politician. It's not getting the swift attention that it should, so I brought it here. To be headmasterly about it - some people might think it's funny, but it's really not appropriate. I would appreciate some admin action to delete the page.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 16:29, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Redirects are not articles, they are purely search aids. As such they are value free - see WP:RNEUTRAL. The question of BLP applies to the underlying target since, by their nature, redirects as such cannot be sourced. If such nicknames are in the target then it is essential that they are reliably sourced. If such sourcing is inadequate then the term should be removed and the redirect with them. If the sourcing meets BLP standards then both the term in the target and the redirect remain. In this case I can find no reliable sources, and the nickname does not appear in the target, so the redirect should be deleted in due course. This redirect has been around for over 5 months, and the RFD ends in two days when it will undoubtedly be deleted, so there is no merit in short-circuiting the process, that allows time for others to find sources. I would add that the status of the subject has a bearing. We rightly treat marginally notable people differently from, for example, front-line politicians who court publicity. In the case of Mandelson, he has cheerfully embraced the nicknames 'Prince of Darkness' and 'The Dark Lord' (see here for example). In my view 'Darth Mandelson', though puerile, is no worse than either of those. Bridgeplayer (talk) 22:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, WP:RNEUTRAL allows non-neutral redirects if they are likely search terms. Darth Mandelson is clearly not, nor would "prince of darkness" be. It's nothing like, for example Milk snatcher, which redirects to Margaret Thatcher's time as education secretary. Think of the fits that would be caused by a redirect to George W. Bush from chimp (a very well attested epithet). It's not up to us to speculate how thick someone's skin happens to be. How long it's been in place is neither here nor there. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 23:13, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that it is not a likely search term, and that it should be deleted, because it is not sourced in the target. That doesn't justify speedy deletion which is where I take issue. Actually, 'milk snatcher' is whole load more offensive and damaging, FWIW. The 'chimp' attribution is rightly not a redirect both because there is a different prime use for this term and, also, since it does not appear in the target. 'Prince of Darkness' is not a redirect because it is a disambiguated term (it has also been applied, in reliable sources, to Mike Jackson amongst others), otherwise it would be fine. Bridgeplayer (talk) 23:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Although POV, "milk snatcher" is not infrequently used as a shorthand in academic accounts of British social policy for that particular episode (it was a very common chant). It's a good example of when a redirect may not be neutral, as it's a plausible search. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 00:10, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree; and it makes my point, that offensive redirects are, when properly sourced, in order. Bridgeplayer (talk) 00:46, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

AFD discussion semi-protected

• Emily Schooley (AfD discussion)
• EmilySchooley (talk · contribs · checkuser · block user · block log · edit count)

There's a limit when it comes to AFD discussion, and this discussion has just gone beyond it, with a succession of legal threats and BLP violations from single-purpose accounts registered just today. I've semi-protected the AFD discussion and am about to look into redacting some of the more egregious irrelevant commentary. BLP regulars are invited to give some sensible, policy-based, opinions about the article and the sources, in the discussion. Uncle G (talk) 19:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• Agree with the admin action above. Also, semi-protected the page. -- Cirt (talk) 11:08, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I also invite BLP regulars to participate in the related AFD discussions of Frozen North Productions (AfD discussion) and Flip's Twisted World (AfD discussion) as well, because at the moment most of the opinions in those two AFD discussions have been given by partisans in the external dispute. More non-partisan participation is needed. Uncle G (talk) 13:07, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Eyes needed

Resolved

TJ Lavin is currently in critical condition due to a BMX accident. Although he may not be the most notable individual, he has some pop culture notability and his article is being hit by several IPs at the moment, some of which are intent on prematurely reporting his death. As I'm logging out for the night I'm hoping that a few BLP-minded individuals could pop this article on to their watchlist to make sure info added is sourced. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 04:10, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

will do Bluebadger1 (talk) 06:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected the page. Tagged it with {{refimproveBLP}}. Tagged with {{Current}}. -- Cirt (talk) 11:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all! --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 14:03, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Shereen Ratnagar

Shereen Ratnagar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - The subject of this biographical entry is a senior university professor, now retired from a premier institution in Delhi, India (Jawaharlal Nehru University). Being a much-published archaeologist, she was invited to act as an expert witness in the court case concerning the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, a highly sensitive and public case that has exposed deeply polarised national politics and opinion in India (Ayodhya debate). This biographical entry appears to have been written by detractors opposed to Ratnagar's views, who are attempting to use Wikipedia to attack her in public. The entry contains no attempt to profile her professional contributions as a scholar or to provide any biographical information about her life, work and achievements in the fields of history and archaeology. It contains sarcastic, derogatory language, and almost all references are merely to newspaper articles written in the context of the court case, usually in highly-charged emotional language.// DomLaguna (talk) 04:35, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected the page. Tagged it with {{refimproveBLP}}. Removed some unsourced controversial info. -- Cirt (talk) 11:04, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Not the first time an article on someone involved with that controversy has appeared here. We probably should keep an eye out for people involved Nil Einne (talk) 21:26, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The Great ANC Race of 8C03

Could someone please check over this draft article; there are BLP concerns, so I'd like others opinions. Feel free to edit it, of course, and if acceptable just move it to a live article. Thanks v much.  Chzz  ►  07:20, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I see your point. The article itself about the "great anc race" is somewhat misleading, and not a notable instance on its own. It might be assumed the article was created to raise the issue of the use of "dumb ni@@er". However, the incident being on youtube, and in the papers makes it somewhat historical and newsworthy, but for that issue alone, and perhaps related specifically to the biographies of the "politicians" at hand - But the whole "great race" thing is hyperbolic. Is it worth an article? I don't know. Is there evidence to support the info about the racial slurs? Absolutely if there is a youtube video of someone making a racial slur. That would be pretty incontestable and unequivocal evidence if not edited, altered, or taken out of context. A good quote I read here earlier today was " A dozen poor citations (repeating an allegation) do not add up to one good citation." but it can't be libelous if true... So I would call it a good citation.Bluebadger1 (talk) 08:42, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The proposed article is total rubbish and belongs on a blog. Whether intended or not, its only interest is to highlight that someone was caught in a youtube video saying something nasty. Johnuniq (talk) 09:09, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is not even close to policy compliant, the creator has this on their userpage , which has already been discussed and resolved as I can see. Off2riorob (talk) 20:28, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Dc archivist is the wiki personality of a freelance reporter covering the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. This account is managed by one entity. Please understand that research is conducted by several persons and then edited and published to Wikipedia by one person. Dc archivist..

Jim Devine

Jim Devine (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - I am concerned about several things in this article, not least of which is WP:UNDUE but in this note I am focussed more narrowly on the subject of what may be innappropriate synthesis. We say "Devine claimed to have heard 'nothing' about a possible prosecution despite it being widely reported over a number of months that his case had been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions and that he was 'astonished and devastated' by the impending prosecution." But the source linked after that sentence, which is here does not contain the word 'nothing' nor the words 'astonished and devastated'.

My concern is that, above and beyond the charges outlined in the article, which are up to a court of law, someone is POV pushing to convict him of giving contradictory statements to the press. This could be false, i.e. things are sometimes reported out of order, etc. Or it could be true and nevertheless inappropriate synthesis. In order to include a skeptical report on him claiming to not know something, even though he must have, we need to have some third party reliable source commenting on that issue - we can't just make it up ourselves.

As far as WP:UNDUE, this looks to me like a fairly tricky case. As a member of the UK parliament, there are no grounds for deletion in my view under BLP1E. Nevertheless, it is also quite likely that the only material press coverage of some otherwise obscure parliamentarians will be from a scandal like this. And it is, in fact, a legitimate scandal of legitimate public interest. Our best hope, then, may be to work hard to flesh out the biography with as much other information as possible. But that's a longer job that will take several of us rolling up our sleeves, so for today, I am just calling attention to the narrow issue which I outlined above.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:02, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Tagged top of page with {{RefimproveBLP}}. Semi-protected the page during this BLP report process. Others may wish to also consider trimming/moving some poorly-sourced-content to the article's talk page. -- Cirt (talk) 10:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The Daily Mail source does contain 'astonished and devastated' but it's in one of non-searchable images in the article here. Having said that, using the Daily Mail as a source for quotes for the BLP of a British Labour politician seems like an inherently bad idea. Sean.hoyland - talk 10:26, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with you about the Daily Mail. But, as you can see below, this was also reported in The Herald, and it is also in the BBC[14], the Daily Telegraph[15], The Independent[16] and many more reputable and reliable sources. RolandR (talk) 11:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep, and that's probably the case for many of the other 11,000+ Daily Mail citations too. Oh well, baby steps. Sean.hoyland - talk 11:44, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

This seems more a case of sloppy citing, rather than a grievous BLP violation. Devine himself does not appear to have claimed to have "heard nothing" about a possible prosecution. Rather, that statement was made by another MP accused alongside Devine, Elliot Morley[17]. Devine did, however, say that he was "astonished and devastated"[18]. There seems nothing here that cannot be corrected by simple editing of the article. RolandR (talk) 10:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The infamous Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The introduction of his page;"Sachs became infamous for implementing economic shock therapy throughout the developing world and in Eastern Europe, and subsequently for his work on the challenges of economic development, environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation, debt cancellation, and globalization." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Sachs seems way too opinionated and should be revised thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.242.113.181 (talk) 01:06, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

"infamous" in the lede is not good, but Sachs is a very controversial figure. Before his image makeover as Friend of Bono, he was one of the faces of shock therapy - and thus earning a very poor reputation amongst social and economic researchers of the Eastern European transition from communism. Basically, his reforms are generally judged to have caused lots of unnecessary poverty. There's lots of sourced criticism about Sachs. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 02:50, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The ip is right. "Controversial"... well, ok (though it depends on who, among social and economic researchers in Eastern Europe you ask). "Infamous" - no.radek (talk) 03:04, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not recommending the use of the word infamous, just pointing out that the article in general is not odd for containing a certain amount of criticism of Sachs' activities. Anders Aslund and neo-liberal economists like him aside, Washington Consensus shock therapy policies did not get a good press wherever they were implemented. Sachs was one of the WC's most prominent exponents. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:54, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah that's fine, some (well sourced) criticisms most certainly belongs in the article, and in a very general way should be mentioned in the lead (as in "controversial"). I rewrote it so it's hopefully non-POV and respects BLP standards but at the same time makes the reader aware that there is some controversy. I think we're in agreement here.radek (talk) 06:28, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

My first edit summary was a little misleading - it gave the impression I supported the lede as it was. Sorry. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 04:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Jim Swire

This article is a bit of a mess - among other things, it seems to be more about the Lockerbie bombing than about Swire, although the reason we have the article is his involvement with it after his daughter was killed by it. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 18:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Natalie Babbitt

Resolved

 – Vandalism reverted. Netalarm^talk 23:52, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Could somebody please read-over, review and rewrite some of the key statements in Mrs. Babbitt's page? There are quite a few points worth contesting.

Vandalism. Has been reverted. Jarkeld (talk) 23:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Dominika Stará

Dominika Stará (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This could be posted also on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard or somewhere else, I'm not sure. A single purpose account, MichalMajkl (talk · contribs) keeps reposting [19], [20], [21], [22] unreferenced and promotional content in this BLP article. After various attempts to resolve the problem [23], [24], [25], [26], [27] I'm forced to ask for help here. I don't want to delete or destroy the article (the person in question seems to be notable per Wikipedia requirements), but this kind of editing/adding content is in my opinion unacceptable. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 20:47, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Removed the unsourced info from the BLP page. Blocked the user. -- Cirt (talk) 23:48, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. The user edits in the same manner from various IP's. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 03:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 21:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotected the page due to the concerns about BLP disruption from IPs. -- Cirt (talk) 21:38, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

After the block expired, MichalMajkl (talk · contribs) reverted again without an explanation. MichalMajkl removed the only reliable source and restored the previous unreferenced and promotional version. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 16:49, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Cleaned up the page again after the repeated BLP violations. Blocked the user for longer block this time, one week. -- Cirt (talk) 14:47, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Paul Watson

• Paul Watson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• BQZip01 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I believe that the intent seen here (in the edit summary), and here (on the talk page), is to attack the character of the subject. My opinion is that it is not helpful in improving a high visibility article on a controversial person. Request preventative guidance on BLP to avoid violations and/or drama. signed Dynamic IP currently editing as: 68.28.104.238 (talk) 18:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotected the article during this period of discussion. -- Cirt (talk) 19:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

How does that make sense? The only editors that have edited the page in relation to the discussion are all autoconfirmed. The IP was looking for guidance on how to proceed with the discussion, not a technical measure that has no effect on the involved users for the most part. --Terrillja _talk 19:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

There has been chronic disruption at the page in the past per the logs, a small bit of recent vandalism, and also recent disruption back-and-forth from registered accounts, though that is okay now. Can't hurt to have a mid-level of protection on a WP:BLP page during an ongoing discussion at BLPN. -- Cirt (talk) 19:16, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I'm OK with this. The focus is on avoiding BLP issues on the article page, not my access to it. Additionally I am unable to notify BQ on his talk page of this discussion. 68.28.104.230 (talk) 19:20, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec)The IP's point was that the BLP violations aren't on the article, they are on the talkpage, such as the link above where BQZip refers to the subject of the article as an idiot., before he went off about meatpuppetry and such. --Terrillja _talk 19:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Understood. The prot was not due to the substance of the report by the IP itself, but as a corollary to the existence of it. -- Cirt (talk) 19:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Update: I have notified BQZip01 (talk · contribs) about this thread. -- Cirt (talk) 19:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Cirt, thanks for the notification. I appreciate it.

I didn't "go off about meatpuppetry and such". I made a single comment that a sudden influx of IPs seemed suspicious. I also explicitly stated it wasn't conclusive. I stand by it, but that doesn't mean it is anything other than a coincidence either.

As for Terillja's claims, he is taking my comments WAY out line. I made a general comment that if ANYONE makes a comment that is demonstrably false, it isn't a "self-serving" comment, but rather self-disservice. The person can be an idiot that posts such information, but that is their responsibility, no ours. This opinion applies to ANYONE who makes claims that are demonstrably false, not just Mr. Watson.

Now even if I DID say something about him specifically, it would be clearly commentary about the subject by a Wikipedian, not something claimed as factual/slander (Wikipedians can have opinions). I'm sure I've done plenty of idiotic things.

I also see no effort to get rid of WP:IDIOT, though I'm pretty sure that refers to living people.

In any case, I see no BLP violation(s).

To the meat of the discussion (pun intended...oh, just smile a little people :-) ), there has never been an WP:SPS violation involved, so it is a red herring in the first place. I didn't add the contentious information in the first place (the material being claimed as an SPS violation).

Lastly, the basics of how to rewrite this have already been agreed upon by multiple users and all that remains is the exact way we're going to do it. — BQZip01 — ^talk 21:51, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

...and here's a little evidence that my comments about meatpuppetry/harassment have some merit: [28][29] — BQZip01 — ^talk 23:11, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

And yet another IP had joined the discussion...— BQZip01 — ^talk 15:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Request this "discussion" be closed. Nearly 10 days and not a peep from anyone. Moreover, I request that the talk page be semi-protected as well. 5 IPs "suddenly" showing up and accusing me of impropriety with exactly ZERO evidence to back up said claims does not help a discussion in any way. FWIW, this is a recurring pattern of behavior with the same user that is the subject of indef semi-protection on my talk page; i.e., this is intentional harassment by IPs (whom I believe are actually the same user...please note the numerous IPs from Virginia...again). — BQZip01 — ^talk 14:40, 18 October 2010 (UTC)