Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Nidal Malik Hasan
Some questions for Keepers[edit]
Hasan is still alive, and thus obviously gets protection under BLP. Keep those rules in mind as you answer my questions.
- Hasan has not been convicted. In all likelyhood, the man will plead insanity, and may never be convicted. But lets not crystal ball here. The point is, he is not currently convicted, or even formally charged with any crime. As said before, having an article on him is tantamount to saying he did it. Doesn't that violate Wikipedia:Blp#Presumption_in_favor_of_privacy?
- But WP:BLP1E requires that his role be significant in order to have a separate article, and until investigations are complete we do not know exactly what that role has been, or how significant it is, despite how obvious it looks at the moment. Kevin (talk) 21:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- We don't have to reach a conclusion as to how significant his role is. Reliable sources has done so, and by that I mean literally hundreds of reliable sources throughout the world.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 22:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- But, again, the issue here is our very strict policies about BLP. Per that policy, BLPs "must be written conservatively," and our sourcing restrictions are even more strict. It's not that the New York Times et. al. are not reliable sources, it's that they are not, as surely we all know, very reliable in the early stages of a complicated event with conflicting reporting (this is why Hasan was reported as dead for awhile). I mentioned the Richard Jewell situation elsewhere here, and anyone not familiar with that case should be as it very much applies to what we are talking about here (see also Steven Hatfill). The "if it's good enough for the NY Times and CNN and everyone else, it's good enough for us" argument that may (rightly) win out in AfDs where the question is just about notability and nothing else does not, I think, work in a BLP in which we will have to include unbelievably serious accusations. In these kind of situations, our standards are arguably higher (or should be) than those of mainstream media outlets, and the fact that "literally hundreds of reliable sources throughout the world" are saying this that or the other thing is rather beside the BLP-point. Again, keep !voters consistently seem to be brushing this concern to the side. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- Agreed. The policies surrounding BLP's are very clear that we need to write conservatively about these subjects. Hypothetically speaking, if Hasan somehow turned out to be innocent, would he still warrant a separate article? WP is not a crystal ball, and we cannot predict what will happen. He hasn't even been formally charged (as far as we, and the press know), so who are we to crystal ball what the outcome will be? Hell, for all we know he was framed. You just can't make assumptions this early. - Drew Smith What I've done 23:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- But, again, the issue here is our very strict policies about BLP. Per that policy, BLPs "must be written conservatively," and our sourcing restrictions are even more strict. It's not that the New York Times et. al. are not reliable sources, it's that they are not, as surely we all know, very reliable in the early stages of a complicated event with conflicting reporting (this is why Hasan was reported as dead for awhile). I mentioned the Richard Jewell situation elsewhere here, and anyone not familiar with that case should be as it very much applies to what we are talking about here (see also Steven Hatfill). The "if it's good enough for the NY Times and CNN and everyone else, it's good enough for us" argument that may (rightly) win out in AfDs where the question is just about notability and nothing else does not, I think, work in a BLP in which we will have to include unbelievably serious accusations. In these kind of situations, our standards are arguably higher (or should be) than those of mainstream media outlets, and the fact that "literally hundreds of reliable sources throughout the world" are saying this that or the other thing is rather beside the BLP-point. Again, keep !voters consistently seem to be brushing this concern to the side. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- We don't have to reach a conclusion as to how significant his role is. Reliable sources has done so, and by that I mean literally hundreds of reliable sources throughout the world.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 22:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- But WP:BLP1E requires that his role be significant in order to have a separate article, and until investigations are complete we do not know exactly what that role has been, or how significant it is, despite how obvious it looks at the moment. Kevin (talk) 21:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- Many things currently included in the article on Hasan have no real bearing at the moment. The extremely strained connection to Al Qaeda really has no place in WP, but editors are throwing it in so the article will be long enough. Everything actually important in that article is already stated in Fort Hood shooting. Isn't this an unnecessary reduplication of effort?
- Why do we need two articles that say basically the same thing? Thats twice as many BLP vio's to watch out for, twice as much vandalism, twice as many edit wars, and twice as many flame wars. That also makes it necessary for editors to watchlist and track both discussions, so as to avoid gaining consensus on one article, but not on the other. Is that really necessary at this point in time? - Drew Smith What I've done 21:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- The community is pretty good at watching multiple pages simultaneously. I wouldn't think this is that much of a stretch. Ronnotel (talk) 21:51, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but that's completely incorrect Ronnotel. The community is not very good at watching pages for BLP violations, which is why we so often end up with serious problems, to the point that they have frequently been covered in the press. Part of the reason why we have the BLP policy and why it is being invoked so heavily here is that we do not have our stuff together on this issue. That's kind of the entire point behind those arguing for deletion, and you cannot just wave your hand at that and make a casual assertion about the great job we do watching multiple pages. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- The community is pretty good at watching multiple pages simultaneously. I wouldn't think this is that much of a stretch. Ronnotel (talk) 21:51, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
- The community is actually rather good at watching high profile pages for BLP violation; its the lower profile ones that are a problem. This is not goingt o be in the "low profile" group. Additionally, we will eventually have sighted revisions for at least selected BLPs, even if it proves too cumbersome to have them for all. DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
This article is needed simply because so much material here is notable. The Fort Hood shooting article covers obama's eulogy as well as the soldiers and civilians who died. The Hasan article covers Hasan, which is what hundreds of WP:RS sources are doing. When Time Magazine does a spread on a guy (his whole life including his parents store!), to question whether he's notable enough for his own article seems rather WP:tendentious (granted this source is post-dates these comments, so it could be an honest goof...not everybody has the same common sense, including me). See here: Time Magazine's Photo Gallery on Hasan's troubled journey --Firefly322 (talk) 18:01, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Tendentious editing you mean; "editing which is partisan, biased or skewed taken as a whole"? I'm seeing that primarily if not exclusively with the keepers (a number of the posts in the AfD could arguably be outright deleted pursuant to AfD Wikietiquette), who are also having a lot of trouble with Wikipedia:Assume good faith regarding people who are favoring an article solely on the event and who want caution exercised about allegations. For me it remains an issue of WP:ONEVENT, and aspects of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, WP:SPECULATION and WP:NOTNEWS. Yes, news media such as are cited in the article are generally reliable sources, but it's a little more problematic to call them reliable when it's often not clear where they're getting their information from and the facts of the story keep changing all the time. Someone mentioned Chesley Sullenberger as an analogy - in fact, yes, I don't know that it makes sense for him to have an article separate from the event, nor am I really sure of the encyclopedic value of a plane ditching. Шизомби (talk) 01:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
As for the assumption of good faith, i myself have trouble seeing any conceivable merit in the deletion arguments--I regard it as a variant of hiding one's head in the sand. But I assume it really makes sense to those who think that way. DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)