Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Jagged 85

Practical issues in carrying out an agreement

I am pleased by Jagged 85's response, although I am one of those editors who find the continual pattern of misinterpreting sources in a particular direction is something more than unintentional enthusiasm. But, for the moment, let's let that issue lie.

More to the point, however, is that Jagged 85 agrees that these errors resulted from the pace at which they edit. We can agree that this is the case; that Jagged has been more concerned to get edits out than with allowing time for the kind of careful research that is necessary before even beginning to write. This change in editorial practice is essential if Jagged is to remain a productive contributor on Wikipedia. Changes to:

• reduce the pace of edits in order to
• take the time to properly research any proposed edits

are essential if we are to achieve the mutually agreed goal "That the editor will agree to apply their enthusiasm to a greater regard for quality and accuracy (both in the choice of sources and the way in which they are used)."

The second point to which Jagged 85 has agreed, "That the editor will agree to undertake a systematic programme of correcting the errors that they have inserted into Wikipedia articles" calls for some form of oversight. ImperfectlyInformed and Gun Powder Ma have both pointed out the lengthy process involved in this programme during which Jagged 85 should focus their attention exclusively on correcting these errors. This seems to call for some form of oversight or mentorship during what accounts to a probationary period while they correct these errors. Can someone agree to undertake this responsibility?

SteveMcCluskey (talk) 12:44, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm also pretty happy with Jagged 85's response. I'll look into his edits occasionally, but I can't take on the entire responsibility. It should be a joint effort, perhaps split up by times. We should establish another ground rule: for the time being while under supervision, Jagged 85 should use sources which are freely-available to anyone on the internet (even if only illegally on Google Scholar). He's had a tendency to use scholarly sources which are difficult to access and require interlibrary loans. These types of sources lead to less questioning and are very credible, so it's even more important that they be used correctly. II | (t - c) 16:36, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll have to plead guilty as one of those who urged him to use scholarly sources, since much of the stuff on Islamic science on the internet is far worse than the general run of internet sources. I don't think it would be a good idea to encourage the use of such dubious sources. Fortunately, many of the history of astronomy sources are freely available through the NASA Astrophysics Data System and a few of us have access to some of the other scholarly literature through JSTOR and other links.

But that issue won't arise immediately, since I envision the clean-up as mainly being a removal of material that he added. As you suggested on the RfC, only after he's removed all the poorly sourced material should he be given a pass to resume editing of pages related to things Islamic -- and I would include in that limitation, only then could he add new sources to justify those claims which he removed as part of the clean-up. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:16, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I would always prefer editors to use easily accessible but scholarly sources in those areas that are the subject of scholarly activity. Though my definition of "easily accessible" is almost certainly wider than for most editors, since I live within walking distance of a national research library, and spend a portion of most days in one or other academic library here.

I am only guessing but it is also my impression that Jagged has never had access to anything more than is easily available here in London (which is where I believe he is based) and that citations to other more inaccessible sources have probably been entirely second-hand via their use on other web pages. If Jagged were prepared to work from sources to which he has access to and has actually seen, my guess is that someone here will be able to check that without great trouble.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 18:53, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I would weigh scholarly over accessible in the importance of future additions of sources, especially if Jagged's future work is informed by the understanding that additional misquoting of sources could result in a ban. One of the more difficult sourcing issues to resolve is when the source in question confirms the user's position, but is in the grey area between reliable and unreliable. This can leave later editors to the difficult work of finding one or more reliable sources which directly contradict the first source. As part of the specific program of resolution, I would propose Jagged go through and remove all sources from FTSC / muslimheritage.com, as a number of sources originating there have already come under scrutiny and proved unreliable, unscholarly, and potentially biased. If the claims are solid, they will appear elsewhere in peer reviewed publications or scholarly books.

I also agree with GunpowderMa's point that "The collected evidence does not represent 'most of the editing errors I've made over the past three years', but is in fact only the tip of the iceberg and only a small representative sample...". This suggests that Jagged still does not fully see where his editing practices have fallen outside of wikipedia guidelines. It seems to me that understanding this clearly enough to catch other errors he has made in the past which were not pointed out here will be essential to bringing this issue to a full resolution. Dialectric (talk) 21:17, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Just on the matter of FTSC / muslimheritage.com, as Steve has pointed out elsewhere, this site has been deemed unreliable (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 18#History of Science) and so any citation of it should be removed anyhow.

I'll continue the "tip of the iceberg" issue in a new section below.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 21:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I realise I missed Steve's call in the first comment on this thread asking for people to volunteer to help review Jagged's contributions (and to act as some form of mentor, if that is something Jagged would want). I am perfectly happy to do this. I couldn't guarantee to do all that might be required but it seems others are happy to do some part, so that should work. As for acting as a mentor: I'm sure Jagged knows his way around Wikipedia better than I do; so any mentoring from me would be restricted solely to issues of finding and using sources, which is somewhere I do have some experience, and would be more than happy to help.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 14:39, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd be quite happy to accept mentorship from Syncategoremata with regards to sources. I'll be sure to bring concerns I have about sourcing to you from time to time. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 13:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Taking time to edit properly

I was struck by this comment in Jagged 85's response to a question:

"making article edits always took me only seconds or, at most, a few minutes, whereas discussions and debates usually took me far longer than that."

This suggests to me that Jagged is not taking the proper editorial care and concern to get the facts straight that we expect in an encyclopedia. The basic expectation in scholarly writing—and an encyclopedia should be scholarly—is that the research will take much more time than the writing and that the writing will take time to express the nuances of the sources. The notion that you can produce an edit in a few seconds is a serious sign of a lack of concern with accuracy that is a glaring flaw in Jagged's writing. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:41, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I would recommend that one of the outcomes of this RfC be a binding commitment that Jagged propose any additions on the article talkpage before making the addition, and that he wait a certain number of hours before making the addition if no one replies. This would greatly mitigate the destructive effect of his "rushed" editing and give the community time to vet his edits. I have seen this remedy being applied to a number of POV-pushers in the past, to satisfactory effect. Athenean (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree with Steve's worry and his assessment here. I'm unclear how such a basic expectation could be enforced on Wikipedia, other than by calling foul when someone goes badly adrift.

One aspect of Jagged's "speed editing" style is that he edits more pages than he can (or does) watch. Thus anyone wanting to challenge his additions previously has not had any response from him on a talk page, if he has already moved on to another page (in his rush of editing). If he were to be restricted to editing (adding to) a certain number of pages per week or something, this might have the double effect of slowing down his editing and allowing him to watch every page (to which he adds material), and would then (in effect) us all to follow the WP:BRD process.

The approach of forcing all edits through the talk page seems to me more appropriate for the sort of POV pusher who works on only a small number of (often contentious) pages. But, I have patently have little to no experience in how something like this would work out here, and offer this just as a suggestion.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 19:01, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I don't really have anything on my watch list right now, or for the last ~2 years for that matter. I remember ~2 years ago, I was finding it stressful to keep up with too many articles on my watch list. After reading the Wikistress article, which suggested emptying the watch list as a remedy, I went along with the suggestion and found that it worked great at reducing stress, so I've kept my watch list empty ever since. Of course, the side-effect there is that it means I ended up ignoring a lot of the discussions and disputes that went on. I don't mind adding some articles to my watch list again, though I'd prefer limiting it to only a few articles I'm currently working on. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 23:19, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

As someone whose watch list is about to break through the 1,000 article count, I have to thank you for that pointer to the Wikistress article. And no, I would not recommend anyone try to keep an eye on a watch list that long; I'm looking forward to cutting it back some time real soon now.

As for keeping your watch list short (but not empty) from now on, I sympathise and agree, subject to the proviso that you don't take articles off your list as soon as you've finished with them yourself, but leave them on there for some time (a month? a couple of months?) to allow other people, whoever they may be, to have the time to see what's on the page, to react on the talk page if they want to, and to receive a response from you (if the question is related to something you've changed on that page).

I've no idea exactly how you will want to work on Wikipedia in future, but one approach might be to take a single page or a small group of closely related pages, and work through them thoroughly—checking sources and so forth—and only moving on to new articles once you are happy with those pages. If you did this, you would be able to watch all the pages you have recently (substantively) edited without causing yourself any too much undue stress. But that is just one suggestion.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 10:06, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, I've always been used to writing on-the-fly when it came to assignments, whether at university or at work (and not much has changed in that regard), but I agree that such a haphazard approach can indeed be problematic for an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. I'll try to slow down the pace at which I edit, and try to restrict myself to a limited number of contributions each week (except for minor edits). That way, I'll have more time to do more research before each edit. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 23:19, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Where it works, that's a great system. But as you've discovered, it doesn't quite work everywhere. A limit such as you suggest here (maybe a limit on the number of contributions or a limit on the number of pages edited or whatever) would make all of us here more comfortable and allow you to do more research on those subjects (which is what I personally find the most enjoyable part of Wikipedia in any case—tho' tastes vary).

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 10:09, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it might be a good idea to focus on only a select few articles at a time, for a few weeks or months. That way, I'll have more time to do more research on each article while at the same time keeping Wikistress levels low. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 13:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Tip of the iceberg

To me, when Jagged says, in reply to Gun Powder Ma's question, that:

I am indeed willing to commit myself to such a programme [of the correction of errors], though I cannot guarantee that I'll be able to get it done any time soon, as it will indeed take me at least months or maybe even a year or longer, but nevertheless, I'll try to go over many of my previous contributions and correct any errors I find, starting with the ones already mentioned here.

he sounds both sincere and aware of the scope of the problem here.

But just to be clear about the probable scale of the clean up that may be required, consider that in one week's edits I found four (more or less major) misuses of sources. I did not check that week's edits for any other issues, so I am ignoring any possible breaches of other policies and I am talking here about violations of just WP:VERIFY.

So, we have four apparent problems in one week's worth of edits. Consider that this is in the week following my rather upset complaint on Jagged's talk page about his misuse of sources ([1]), so if anything one might hope that he was paying more attention to such issues than he might have done at other times. Thus there is no reason not to believe that every week that he has been editing will not contain just as many problems as that week. And he has been editing here on Wikipedia for something like four and a half years, which gives us a rough estimate of around one thousand problems. If we further consider that each of these will have been made in more than one article, copied there either by Jagged or by some other editor, we are talking about an estimate of many thousands of problematic edits across Wikipedia.

Perhaps the situation is not this bad, but there seems to be little evidence for anyone to be more optimistic than this. My experience in checking any article to which Jagged has made any substantial article is that there will be numerous issues with the use and interpretation of sources.

Thus if Jagged is sincere in his understanding that the clean up will take "at least months or maybe even a year or longer", then I believe he is fully aware that the evidence provided here is, as people have said, nothing more than the tip of the iceberg.

All the best. – Syncategoremata (talk) 21:49, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you,Syncategoremata.We are facing a problem of EPIC proportions here.We must remember that Jagged is one of the main contributors to wikipedia(he´s ranked 209 in the number of edits),and practically all of his edits have to do with islamic science,technology and philosophy.It won´t be easy to remove all this false information.If Jagged interest is make us appreciate the grandeur of islamic contributions to the world,I´m sorry to say his plan has backfired.Truth is always first.--Knight1993 (talk) 23:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not only just the quantity of edits which need to be corrected, there is also a big question mark on the ability to identify one's own mistakes. The real question is, how can a user who regards what is just the tip of the iceberg as the sum of his misinterpretations be brought to identify the remaining 95% of his errors? From what Jagged 85 says, he used to act in good faith, so, if we take him by the word, that means he was not even aware of his misinterpretations! How can he now abruptly turn around with 180 degrees and hope to change what he sincerely, according to his own words, believed to be correct in the last 36 months? This is not a question of time, but much more perception. One can change ones time management, but can you change your perception overnight? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 08:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

That is certainly an issue but I'm not expecting a miracle: all of us make mistakes here and some of those mistakes we ourselves will not notice even if we go back and check them again ourselves. But if Jagged were to take more care over the quality of his work here, if he were to make a conscientious effort to go back through as much of his previous work as he can find the time for, and if he makes a good enough job of that, I can't imagine us asking for anything more.

He won't find every problem in those articles: none of us would. He will make more mistakes: all of us will. But if he ever repeats such blatant misuse of sources as we've found here, or if he continues to make widespread misinterpretation of sources, then I can only imagine us moving to have him banned.

He has offered to restrict his other work here for the time being while he does this repair work. He has admitted many of the issues we raised in the RfC/U: for example he has admitted bias; he has admitted becoming defensive and searching for alternative sources to defend a position; and has accepted that he will need to change how he works here. That is most of what we have requested, though it may or may not satisfy everyone involved here.

The one thing I might ask of Jagged at this point is that he look through the detailed issues we have raised (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Evidence, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Recent evidence, User:Spacepotato/Examples of original research in Wikipedia and User:Spacepotato/Misuse of sources) and confirm that he understands the detailed criticisms we have laid out there. (And of course it is possible that we ourselves are in error in one or more of those criticisms.) If he can at least see what sort of mistakes he has made, and understands them, we are in a better position to see an agreement here.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 10:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

In response to Knight1993, my original intentions when I joined Wikipedia years ago was, one, to expand the Indian and Islamic science/technology articles (which were previously in a shabby state, barely beyond stub-level, and in the case of the Islamic ones, almost entirely focused on the religion and even miracles rather than the actual civilization), and two, to counter the pre-existing Eurocentric bias on Wikipedia (nearly all general science/technology articles at the time were, almost without exception, exclusively focused on Europe). In other words, while some critics may feel that my contributions have "damaged" Wikipedia, I personally feel that my positive contributions have far outweighed the problematic ones I've made. However, many of my original objectives for joining Wikipedia had pretty much already been met after several years, but by that point, I had become a Wikiholic addict, so I just felt I had to continue compulsively adding more and more contributions related to the medieval Islamic civilization (and sometimes other Asian civilizations), almost to the point where it may seem too excessive. In a way, ironically, I'm a bit glad that an RFC has been called. Maybe this might be a good way to restrict my Wikiholic addiction? Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 00:28, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

It occurred to me that this RfC/U might not be a total curse for you (especially coming as it does in the middle of a minor heatwave in London), and that a week's enforced break from (what appears to be) addictive editing would be no bad thing (for any of us).

As for your original intention and the balance of your contributions to Wikipedia: Steve McCluskey has mentioned in his view here as have other editors elsewhere (such as here) that you have done an immense amount of good work in developing articles on non-Western contributions, which were either originally entirely missing or of very poor quality. And as you say, Wikipedia still suffers from an overall imbalance in favour of a Western, Euro-centric POV (or however one might want to describe it).

The only thing I would disagree with in your comment above is that, whether or not your positive contributions have out-numbered your negative ones, I believe that the overall effect is still damaging to Wikipedia, as the presence of enough problems in a given area makes the reader suspect that the entire thing is false and should not be trusted. And that is regardless of whether the majority of information on that page is correct or not.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 10:21, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, out of the four examples you've gathered at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Recent evidence, three of them were just copy-and-pastes from other articles (the only exception being the Gallup poll). In other words, I think the main error I made that week was copying-and-pasting material without double-checking the sources. As for Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Evidence, maybe "most" was not the right word to describe the examples given here. I'll admit that there are many more errors I've made over the years, although I still believe that only a minority of my overall edits are problematic, though I understand that even a minority of my edits is still a large number in itself considering the total number of edits I've made over the years. Nevertheless, I'll do what I can to identify and correct whatever errors I can find, whether there are hundreds or even a thousand. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 23:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, it did not occur to me to check whether those claims had been already added elsewhere here (I just checked whether they were new to a particular article). That reduces my overall estimate, which is a relief to know. And many thanks also for your commitment to working to find and correct any of the problematic edits that are still here.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 10:25, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I understand what you mean. A few negative errors in an article can sometimes be enough to cast doubt on the entire article itself. Ironically, that's pretty much what's happened to my own work here at Wikipedia, where a number of problems that I've been responsible for has now led to some casting doubt on my entire body of contributions, even if the positive does far outweigh the negative. My negligence and laziness towards concerns raised over errors I've made has not really helped either, and I probably only have myself to blame for that. All I can do now is just deal with it and try to fix whatever I can. By the way, I agree that the timing of the London heat wave couldn't be any better. This would be a great time to go out and play in the sun, now that the usually bad UK weather has come to an end! (At least for now.) Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 13:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Clarification request for ambiguous comment

A quick question to Hipocrite (talk · contribs). You wrote at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85#Questions 2 that:

You, of course, understand that your above explanation is totally unacceptable

I assume you mean that Jagged's previous behaviour was unacceptable, not that his apology for that behaviour is unacceptable? I'm reading it as the former, but it is ambiguous and I wanted to make sure that all of us (including Jagged) are clear on what is being accepted or rejected here.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 09:52, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Framework for a proposed solution

I've drawn together a number of issues that have been discussed on the RfC that provide elements for a proposed solution to be posted on the main page. Before doing so, I'm putting the ideas here for comment and editing. If I've missed any important elements, feel free to add them. (Given their cut-and-paste origins it will definitely need copy-editing)

• That the editor agrees to undertake a systematic programme of correcting the errors that they have inserted into Wikipedia articles.
  • This seems to call for some form ofThat the editor agree to oversight or mentorship during what amounts to a probationary period while they correct these errors.
  • As part of the specific program of resolution, Jagged will go through and remove all sources from FTSC / muslimheritage.com, as this site has been deemed unreliable (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 18#History of Science) and so any citation of it should be removed anyhow.
• He will stop further contributions related to Muslim topics while he works at correcting the errors. If he corrects the errors effectively, then he could start contributing on these topics again.
  • That the editor agrees to apply their enthusiasm to a greater regard for quality and accuracy (both in the choice of sources and the way in which they are used), which would be of great benefit to Wikipedia's users (and editors).
    • Reduce the pace of edits, taking the time to properly research any proposed edits.
    • Discuss potentially controversial edits on article talk pages before making them.
    • Watch the pages that they have recently edited, and their talk pages, and respond to comments in accordance with WP:BRD.
    • Avoid all questionable, inappropriate and unreliable sources.
    • Avoid using exceptionally poor sources for exceptional claims.
• The editor will follow through with that commitment. If there is no follow through, and the problematic behavior continues, this will only get worse. All of us make errors. It is what we do subsequent to acknowledgment of those errors that is crucial.
  • Misrepresenting sources is a banable offense. If it happens again, there is no reason to keep this user around.... if they misrepresent another source after this response, they'll probably be shown the door.

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:54, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks pretty complete to me Steve. Some comments:

• Although that was my original wording, "correcting the errors", I might suggest we change it to "correcting the problems", as 'errors' makes the issue sound one just of truth rather than also one of verifiability.
• The material recorded in the RfC/U and on the evidence pages should form part of the final summary. That is, Jagged should accept that the evidence we have gathered is indeed problematic and that he will avoid (to the best of his ability) adding any further material like that. This step is necessary in the unfortunate event of any future issues, as we need to be able to point back here and to show exactly what was agreed to be unacceptable.
• I'm unclear that even a temporary ban on further contributions to, say, Islamic topics is useful: if Jagged works through the existing articles with care, he will probably find good material in his reading of sources that should be added to other pages. Done in moderation and with care, this would be of benefit to all of us here and to Wikipedia's users. If he is not allowed to do that, he is likely to forget such material and never add it, which would be a waste. Perhaps some initial self-restraint on his part would be all that is required there, plus the knowledge that he has had what will probably be a final warning. I may well be in a minority with this view though.
• As I mentioned above, I'm also not clear that we can (or need to) make any reference to the speed of editing. If he can achieve high quality and high speed simultaneously, all to the good. I obviously don't think that anyone could do that, but the requirement for high quality may be sufficient. Again, I believe I may be in a minority in this view.

I've put a note on Jagged's talk page to let him know that we need to put together a summary here on the talk page so that we can move to close the RfC/U by agreement. My guess is that if he were to indicate an agreement to these terms, with or without detailed changes, we could get a consensus on a closing summary within the next few days at the longest.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 14:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

An alternative to the "edit slower" idea might be if Jagged would agree to watch the pages that he edits from now on and that he will respond to any issues raised on their talk pages within some reasonable time span (within a few days, assuming that is editing and not taking a break at the time etc).

This isn't a requirement that he watch those pages until the end of the world, but that he does so for a reasonable amount of time after working on them. Also it would only apply to pages he edits substantively: minor edits for spelling and so forth don't require this. (My guess is that this is how a lot of people do work here on Wikipedia, and that it would be a reasonable expectation on an editor, who made major contributions here, that they would follow this pattern, especially if their work is sometimes contentious.)

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 14:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The above sounds good, though in addition I would like to see some stipulation requiring that Jagged use the article talkpage more. This ought to slow down the frantic pace of his edits while also improving their quality. Athenean (talk) 16:05, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've made a few changes to the draft reflecting these comments. I'm still not happy with the last two bullet points; they might be consolidated if someone feels like a copy editor. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:11, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Many of the suggestions above seem reasonable enough, so I don't have any problems in accepting the conditions mentioned above. In addition, I was thinking about going through the sources I have access to and quoting the relevant parts in the footnotes of the article. That way, it will be easier for users to check whether or not what the article states matches what's written in the source. What do you think? Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 22:44, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I would like to see one more bullet point added—something like:

• Give citations which clearly indicate the source actually consulted.

One of the problems with Jagged_85's edits has been his citing sources which he has not consulted directly—a practice which is contrary to the guideline on citing sources. It's true that he has sometimes tried to indicate the source actually consulted by citing it in a parenthetical cf appended to his main reference, but this is not adequate. The abbreviation cf is now hopelessly ambiguous, and "cited in" has never been one of its meanings anyway. If a consulted source cites another as its source, I certainly think it's a very good idea to include both of them in the citation. But if the second source has not actually been consulted, it must be cited in a way which makes that clear.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 02:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I am quite disturbed by Jagged 85's proposal that he renew editing by adding footnotes with quotations to support the questionable material that has been pointed out to him. We've already seen enough examples of his adding new material that has to be checked out by other editors. We've also seen enough examples where he quotes short "proof texts" out of context which, upon full examination turn out to contradict his assertions. The appropriate method would be to present the full text on the article talk page, where it could be examined and discussed by other editors (and particularly by his mentor) to determine whether the text cited actually supports the claim made.

Furthermore, as earlier discussions on the RfC and on this page make clear, this is not the time to begin adding new material to his prior edits. The first step in cleaning up this material is to remove the claims and sources advanced in support of those claims, wherever they appear.

After this material is removed, however many months that may take, Jagged 85 may be considered to have demonstrated his bona fides to his mentor and the community and can then resume adding new evidence or claims to these topics. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:39, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I was not referring to the questionable material mentioned here in this RFC (most of which I am willing to remove), but I meant in general, after I was done removing the disputed material. Once I'm done with the first step of cleaning up, I was thinking it would make it a lot easier afterwards to identify what other problematic material there may be if I quoted the sources (I was thinking entire paragraphs or pages rather than short sentences) for many of the articles I've previously worked on. If the footnotes is not the right place to do it, then I don't mind adding them to the talk page, though I'm not exactly sure what difference it would make? Of course, this is something I was thinking for much further down the line (after weeks or months), not something I do right away. Do you think it would be a good idea, or would it be better to simply post links (though many might not be accessible) rather than quotes? Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 08:08, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Apart from the issue raised by Steve McCluskey above (that you have quoted material in this way before but in such a way as to mislead), there is the basic issue that if someone doesn't trust you when you claim that a cited source supports your claim, they won't believe you when you claim that something you quote is in that source either. It also has the problem of making pages even longer and even slower to edit than they already are.

If something is particularly dubious or complex, but you believe that you have good sources, one approach might be to collect the information on a user page or a sub page somewhere, and link to that from your edits (as I have done with User:Syncategoremata/Ibn Sīnā and the invention of the thermometer and Steve with Talk:History of astronomy/Common misconceptions, for example). I've done similar things by adding material directly to talk pages (for example, Talk:Ibn_Yunus#Pendulum to support Ibn Yunus#Pendulum]).

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 10:34, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Jagged, for clarifying your proposal. I'm glad to hear that you agree that removing most of the material mentioned in this RfC comes before adding new source material. It would be wise to add something like that to the proposal above. I have a hectic weekend and perhaps you or someone else could do so. Best wishes, SteveMcCluskey (talk) 12:02, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Considering how some users don't really trust me with anything now, I think I'll leave it you or Syncategoremata (or any other user) to update the proposal list. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 13:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, Syncategoremata. I'll try make more use of my own user space from now on. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 13:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

This is about resolving a problem, not about punishment

It occurred to me that I ought to pick up on one thing that Jagged said in his first response to this RfC/U:

I am willing to accept [...] any other outcomes (or even punishments) that users here wish to see

Despite the obvious frustration and anger felt by the editors involved in bringing this RfC/U, I want to stress that this process has nothing to do with punishment. Certain aspects of Jagged's behaviour have led to a dispute; we are here to find a way to resolve that and find a way to move forward to everyone's satisfaction.

I imagine everyone involved understands this but I just wanted to make it explicit.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 09:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. I really appreciate it. I'll try do what I can to resolve the issues raised here. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 13:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Second shot at a closing agreement

Here's my attempt at a consolidated and copy edited agreement by which we could close this RfC/U. (With subsequent additions and deletions marked as shown.)

• Jagged 85 agrees that the edits collected as evidence for this RfC/U are indeed unacceptable and that he will avoid repeating anything like that again.
• Jagged 85 agrees to undertake a systematic programme of correcting any errors that they have inserted into Wikipedia articles. As part of this, he has agreed:
  • to accept oversight or mentorship during what amounts to a probationary period while these errors are corrected;
  • as part of the specific program of resolution, to remove any remaining citations of sources from FTSC / muslimheritage.com, as this site has been deemed unreliable (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 18#History of Science);
  • that while he works at correcting these issues, he will temporarily stop further contributions on Islamic topics topics relating to Islamic civilization or to the history of medicine, science and technology.
• Jagged 85 agrees to apply his enthusiasm to a greater regard for quality and accuracy (both in the choice of sources and the way in which they are used), which would be of great benefit to Wikipedia's users (and editors). This will involve:
  • taking care to cite precisely the source that has been consulted and where in that source the supporting material is to found;
  • discussing any controversial edits on article talk pages before making them;
  • watching the pages that they have recently edited, and their talk pages, and responding to comments there in accordance with WP:BRD;
  • avoiding any questionable, inappropriate and unreliable sources, and in particular, avoiding any exceptionally poor sources for any exceptional claims avoiding edits which add exceptional claims, unless these have received strong confirmation from several reliable sources.
• Jagged 85 agrees to follow through his commitment to this process and he understands that, if such problematic behaviour were to occur again, further action will be taken against him. Such an action would be a request for some sort of ban.
• The other editors involved in this dispute agree to co-operate with Jagged 85 in this programme, and to provide what reasonable support they can to aid him in that process.

I think that includes most of what people have discussed here, and I also think that Jagged has agreed to each of those conditions (implicitly if not explicitly). The last condition is entirely my own idea, and may well not be a consensus view: please edit.

On one last detail: I believe that we are meant to have a summary written by an uninvolved party as part of such a closing process. Once we have a consensus on the closing agreement, and if no-one objects, I will post a notice on the administrators' noticeboard asking for someone there to check over all of this before we close it. (I would ask ncmvocalist (talk · contribs), who often does such duty here, but they are currently on a wikibreak.)

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 16:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Seems fair enough to me.--Knight1993 (talk) 22:25, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

The above mentions a temporary hiatus on editing related to "Islamic topics". I believe that this should be expanded to "topics relating to Islamic civilization or to the history of medicine, science and technology", for two reasons:
(1) For the most part, Jagged's contributions are only Islamic insofar as they relate to so-called Islamic civilization. They do not directly deal with the religion of Islam.
(2) The problematic edits are not restricted even to Islamic civilization. I gave earlier two examples relating to claimed Japanese inventions (here, here.)
Another more recent example of a problematic edit outside Islamic civilization is [2]. Here, the difficulty from a policy point of view is that the source, the Journal of Scientific Exploration, is at best speculative (or even fringe.) Substantively, the claim in the edit that the Surya Siddhanta estimates the diameters of Mercury and Saturn with an error of "less than 1%" would require that the length of the yojana be known to within 1%. This seems implausible as estimates for the length of the yojana vary widely.
Spacepotato (talk) 23:50, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Spacepotato's suggestion to add history of medicine, science and technology seems reasonable. With a change like that the new draft seems about ready to go on the RfC page. Thanks Syncat. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:38, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I also agree with Spacepotato's suggestions.

There is one other requirement that I think needs to be reworded (or perhaps dropped as redundant): " ... avoiding any exceptionally poor sources for any exceptional claims." We should all of us be avoiding exceptionally poor sources for any claims, not just exceptional ones. Exceptional claims should require more careful sourcing than usual. If such a claim is found in what appears to be an otherwise reliable source, the least that ought to be to be done before adding it to Wikipedia is to obtain further confirmation by checking some other decent sources. I would suggest replacing the requirement with something like: " ... avoiding edits which add exceptional claims, unless these have received undisputed confirmation from several reliable sources."

David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:27, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Off the record

I think it is necessary to point once to the large amount of time and effort which the certifying users, particularly Syncategoremata, have spend in their free time to collect the evidence and which has kept them for weeks from their regular editing work at Wikipedia. I believe, in order to be fair to Jagged 85, it is important to make clear that if members of the community feel again the necessity for another collective action like this, the only likely request given the tremendous amount of work involved will be nothing less than a request for a ban from Wikipedia. I am speaking here on my own behalf, but I am sure the other users think similarly. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:26, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I second that.This is his last chance.But I hope this is the end of the problem.--Knight1993 (talk) 14:45, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Ditto. Athenean (talk) 20:03, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Like Knight1993, I hope this is the end of the problem, otherwise some form of enforcement leading to a ban is almost inevitable. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:05, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Nearly closing time

As we seem to be on the verge of closing this, I've posted a note on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, asking for someone to look over both the RfC/U and the proposed agreement.

Assuming there are no further comments on the draft agreement in the next 24 hours or so, I'll add it to the main RfC/U page and sign it myself. Once all the editors involved have signed it, I'll then close and archive the RfC/U. And we can all move on.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 21:21, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. Athenean (talk) 21:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I have been away for several weeks. You guys have been busy. I spend a great deal of my "wiki time" checking cites. Although I think the closing agreement is somewhat weak, if jagged can live and edit within the spirit of it I will be glad to help. J8079s (talk) 20:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

• In response to the request at WP:AN I have been looking this over for any major problems, and I'm happy to report that I don't see any. What counts is results, and it's an encouraging sign that a voluntary agreement has been reached after only a few days, and reflects positively on everyone involved. I've reviewed a few of these before and you have all remained very civil and have refrained from resorting to attacks and hyperbole like so many others have done in such situations and you are all to be commended for that. I see this has been mentioned several times already, but it cannot be stressed enough: RFC/U is usually the final opportunity a user has to voluntarily correct problems identified by the community. If the problem behaviors return, Jagged 85 will almost certainly be banned or otherwise restricted, either by the arbitration committee or the community at large, which generally is even harsher and less likely to go for anything short of a full ban. Luckily, Jagged 85 seems sincere and will have a team of mentors to assist in the task before him, so hopefully this won't be a problem. Best of luck to you all. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:58, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Closing time

I've copied the summary from here to the main page and signed it. I don't think that signing the summary is a standard procedure, but as it is meant to be written by an uninvolved editor, maybe it's a good idea for all the involved editors to sign it?

If everyone agrees, and signs it, I'll add archive tags to the page and move it to the list of archived RfC/U's.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 20:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Cleaning up the problem

In case other people haven't noticed, Jagged 85 appeared to quit editing but was in fact editing under an IP (permalink), and a sockpuppetry case has been opened. It does not appear that Jagged 85 is going to work on fixing his issues, but we need to keep track of the progress to make sure some work is being done and to make sure we're not duplicating each others' efforts. I would prefer that a subpage be set up here rather than at someone's userpage so that it seems more organized. On that subpage we could create a list of Jagged 85's articles, possibly in a sortable table which has a second column of Jagged 85's edits to the page. Then we could cross off the pages and put comments in a third column. I imagine that the database people could do this for us. I propose using Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Cleanup as the page. Is that OK?

I have already looked at economics where Jagged 85 made a few edits, and I think his edits there are OK. II | (t - c) 06:06, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a reasonable idea, as there is editing going on and some of us are beginning to list "jaggedized" pages in their to do lists. It would also be handy to include links to each pages' edit history somewhere in the table. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:27, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Has anyone worked out how to list the articles? If there are no better offers, I might be able to write a script to list the unique pages with range of editing dates, or whatever links we might feel are useful. Johnuniq (talk) 05:07, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

That would be very useful if you could do that. Tobby72 has been adding information on the talk pages of many articles about the editing of them by Jagged 85 but I'm guessing they may well be doing all the analysis by hand (given their announced Wikistress level).

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 10:56, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

There already is such a tool in use by the copyright violation cleanup people, the Contribution surveyor, which creates lists like this. Access to the tool is limited AFAIK, but you could ask one of the regulars there (e.g. User:Moonriddengirl) to create it for you. Amalthea 11:35, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I've just tried it and the tool seems to be publicly accessible. Now we just have to work out what to do with a list of nearly 8,000 articles it generates.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 12:04, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've probably just crippled the servers doing it, but the pages linked from Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Cleanup now contain the entire contribution surveyor output.

Perhaps people might delete articles from those pages that seem to have a clean bill of health?

If these pages really are too large (they are currently all just under 200K of wikitext), let me know and I'll split them down further: I just couldn't face creating more than 10 pages for this.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 12:37, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Or, even better, follow Amalthea's example: Delete the diffs and replace them with "{{n}} ~~~~".

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 12:44, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I just follow the copyvio-cleanup people's lead. If they find a problematic edit and clear it, they respectively replace the diffs by a {{y}} with a brief comment. Amalthea 12:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Excuse my ignorance but what does deleting the diffs and replacing with "{{n}}" do?Jayzames (talk) 01:02, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Replacing the diffs with either N or Y (plus your signature) means that you think the article is free of any problem (or, any problem related to this RfC/U). If you replace the diffs with N, it means you found no problem there; with Y, means that there was some issue but you have cleared it.

Or so I understand it.

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 01:28, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

While checking a few things, I noticed that the Contribution Surveyor only lists main namespace edits. That is generally good, but I thought it worthwhile to manually determine what other pages have been edited by Jagged. The result is Cleanup other. The items probably do not need much checking, but I thought it worth listing the pages for at least a quick once over. Johnuniq (talk) 09:08, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Has Jagged_85 created many new pages? this tool used to give a list of new pages. Is there a comparable tool? IMO, any new pages that haven't been heavily revised by others should be bulk-deleted. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:25, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Simple link for edit summary

A potential problem is that someone will clean an article to remove unverified claims, but in a few days or a few months, other editors might not understand the reason for the removal, and may restore the text without much thought. Since so many articles are involved, watching them is not really achievable (certainly we can't undertake to watch them for a year or more).

Would the following be worthwhile?

• Put a short summary of the situation on a page (say at the top of WT:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Cleanup), with links to the RFC and any other significant discussions.
• Create a page like WP:JCL that would redirect to the Cleanup page.

Or, WP:JCL could have the summary, with a link to other stuff, including the Cleanup page (I guess it would be an essay, although then it would need a better title, which could be a problem due to no personal attacks). The summary needs to be a quick introduction for someone who has never encountered this issue. If this is worth doing, what would the page be called? I suggested "JCL" because it is short and neutral, while sufficiently mnemonic for us to understand it as "Jagged cleanup".

The point of this is that the short text "see [[WP:JCL]]" could be added to edit summaries when cleaning up. Johnuniq (talk) 07:28, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

A short summary would be worthwhile.

I wouldn't want to hide this behind a short redirect like "WP:JCL". "Jagged 85 cleanup" is short enough, and more than neutral (IMO). Also, "JCL" could be used by WP:AJ for a "journal c<something> list". ;-) John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:01, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Good, but I was hoping for a shortish redirect to be used in edit summaries where space is tight. There are 63 characters in the wikitext of "Jagged 85 cleanup", and whereas it can be copy/pasted, it's a bit cumbersome. What do you think of a redirect at WP:Jagged 85 cleanup? Johnuniq (talk) 04:38, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

That redirect works for me. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:07, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've done that. Now I just need to get on with the cleanup... Johnuniq (talk) 09:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits by Jagged 85

Some of this editor's recent edits are somewhat worrying, given the history. Since the RfC, he has of course been careful not to do anything over-the-top. However, it seems to me that his edits more or less continue in the same vein, simply (heavily) diluted. For example, edits such as these [3] [4], though minor (and inconspicuous if done by another editor), shows me that he intends to continue where he left off: switching word order to give prominence to Islamic culture is a famous tactic of his (and one not likely to lead to blocks). I can't comment on whether these specific instances are justified or not. Someone more knowledgeable may want to have a look. While the actions are minor, I think it is the intent that counts here. With regards to his history, I fail to see how it doesn't warrant a permanent ban. His 60,000+ edits have likely caused more harm than any other editor at this project. I think it is implausible he acted in good faith. Christopher Connor (talk) 01:11, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

That gives great concern. First, we need someone with knowledge in the field to confirm that the edits are what they appear (intentionally giving undue emphasis to a certain POV without adequate sources). Regardless of the technical accuracy of these edits, I would recommend a formal topic ban (or site ban) to avoid the need to carefully monitor an editor with such a track record. I do not think that any assurances from the editor would be adequate. Second, we need someone to suggest how to proceed to have the editor formally sanctioned. Re the latter, probably all that is required would be to post a succinct summary of the situation at WP:AN and request a topic ban. Please, no one do that until a good statement is produced because ban requests can go wrong due to an initial report that is too long, or too hard to follow, or that is inappropriately worded. Probably the main link in such a report should be to WP:Jagged 85 cleanup, so we need to make sure that page is adequate and that all useful links are included on that page. Since we are discussing sanctions, I have formally notified the user at their talk page. Johnuniq (talk) 05:01, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to Johnuniq for inviting me to this discussion. In response to Christopher Connor: Have you browsed through all 60,000+ of my edits to jump to the (obviously biased) judgement that they've "caused more harm than any other editor at this project"? Just because a tiny minority of my edits (less than 5% of them) are questionable, that doesn't suddenly mean there's a problem with every single one of my edits. The only reason anyone would think all "60,000+ edits have likely caused more harm than any other editor at this project" is because they choose to focus exclusively on the tiny percentage of edits (i.e. the controversial ones) that support their point of view and ignore the rest (the vast majority of which are reliable, positive contributions). Anyway, that's something I've been wanting to say these past several months and I'm glad I've had the chance to finally let it out (I've seen similar bad-mouthing elsewhere on Wikipedia and even outside of it). As for the specific minor edits in question, it concerns pre-Islamic Persian culture, not Islamic culture. I didn't think these minor edits would be controversial, but if that's the case, then just revert them (I honestly can't be bothered to engage in any edit wars). If anyone wants to take it further and impose a topic ban on me, then go ahead. I've already gotten over my Wikipedia addition a while ago (which should be obvious from the low frequency of edits) and don't really care anymore whether I'm allowed to edit Wikipedia or not. Who knows, maybe a ban will be better if some users feel so threatened by my presence on this site? Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 05:55, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Even assuming a minority of your edits are questionable, 5% of 60,000+ edits would amount to 3,000+ "bad" edits, disseminated in hundred of entries. That's some sort of record. Now, since there is no obvious way to tell which of your edits are questionable and which are not, the whole of your contribution here has to be reviewed anyway. Given your propensity to misrepresent sources or cite sources that you yourself did not check, that in many cases, sources are cited loosely (no chapters, page numbers etc), reviewing your contributions is going to be a colossal task. An edit that may have taken you 30s to make might take hours to review. The harm done to the project cannot be understated. Equendil Talk 12:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Equendil has put his finger on the core of the present problem, the difficulty of correcting the errors made by Jagged 85's edits. There is an ongoing program to review his edits systematically. However, despite agreeing in the RfC "to undertake a systematic programme of correcting any errors that they have inserted into Wikipedia articles" and "to accept oversight or mentorship ... while these errors are corrected", Jagged 85 has not contributed in the least to this effort to clean up after himself. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I too am disapointed. This edit [5] looks just like the old Jagged. Since he says (QWHO KNOWS, MAYBE A BAN WILL BE BETTER IF SOME USERS FEEL SO THREATENED BY MY PRESENCE ON THIS SITE?) it is clear to me he does not understand our concern and does not want to help.J8079s (talk) 18:30, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

To SteveMcCluskey: I haven't been active on Wikipedia for quite a while now, and probably won't be anytime soon. If I was more active, then I would contribute to the clean-up. Like I said, I did originally say that it might take me at least a year or more to do it, so I do intend to eventually get around to it, but just not anytime soon (not because of the antagonism directed towards me, but mainly because I have very little free time these days). To J8079s: Like I said in the RfC a few months back, I would like to help out, but the fact of the matter is that, if some users do not even want me to have anything to do with Wikipedia, is there really any point? Jagged 85 (talk) 01:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

To SteveMcCluskey: This programme will take years even if we find enough competent users who are willing to commit their time to this rather thankless task. I have come around to believe that it would be best to delete all of Jagged 85's 'contributions' to WP. This may sound radical, but once you consider that it is the unsuspecting readers whom we own our obligations, it becomes a much more natural option. If we have to decide between the rights of an individual users and the interests of the mass of readers and the whole project, I will opt for the later. @ Jagged 85: Please don't take it personally, it won't materialize anyway. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:03, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I must say that I have taken my time to check some of Jagged´s work (regarding islamic culture, of course) and I must say that 75% is a good estimate of his bad edits. And if we consider that most of his edits are islam-related, we have helluva problem. As Gun Powder Ma says, deleting all his edits would save us much time and work. And we have to bear in mind that time is essential. Wikipedia´s credibility is at stake, because as Jagged has already pointed out, some readers have already noticed his awkward edits. And I must admit I´m very angry for all of this. Because when I began thinking that he could change, the sockpuppetry investigations came up. Seriuosly, if anyone has a better way of solving this problem, please propose it. And if it has to be drastic, so be it.--Knight1993 (talk) 20:04, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm coming to agree that most of his edits are bad edits. Wholesale deletion of all of Jagged's edits, however, is not a simple solution since many of these edits are years old and are intertwined with later, productive, edits. Intelligent editing seems still to be called for, but if other reliable sources contradict Jagged's edits, I see no reason to track down his obscure sources to find whether, and in what way, they have been misinterpreted. This would expedite the process as his blatant misinterpretations of sources have taken us past the point where we need to AGF. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 03:05, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

"...but if other reliable sources contradict Jagged's edits, I see no reason to track down his obscure sources to find whether, and in what way, they have been misinterpreted". This means in effect that his edits will remain in place until the text has been completey rewritten (because just deleting the stuff by pointing out the reliable sources will hardly do in the eyes of non-instructed third-party users). This will take years, so the question still remains: can WP afford to have thousands of bad edits in hundreds of articles or not? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 03:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

An intermediate approach would be to intelligently edit an affected section and (if reasonable) remove any claims (whether sourced or not) that look typical of Jagged's style, then add the text, with any references in nowiki tags, to the talk page. I would strongly recommend using standardized text for that, perhaps with a template – if it's not done carefully with a good edit summary including a reference to the talk page, someone will just revert, perhaps in a month. The text would need to briefly outline the issue, why the text has been moved to talk, and include a suitable link (perhaps to a new section at WP:Jagged 85 cleanup which explains the specific approach of moving disputed material to talk). The text (or the target of the link) should probably ask anyone thinking of restoring the text to follow some procedure: carefully check each of the references; check for WP:DUE; probably a bit more. We might even ask that the editor post here (or some special talk page?) saying they are restoring (because we can't watch thousands of pages)? Johnuniq (talk) 04:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good insofar as it shifts the burden of proof, and thus the major burden of work, to those who wish to keep Jagged 85's edits. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:53, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

When I said "I see no reason to track down his obscure sources" I was not meaning that we should let them go, in fact I meant something like Johnuniq's position, that given Jagged's past record of misinterpreting sources, when we find a passage where a Jagged citation disagrees with a reliable source, we can assume that the source cited does not support Jagged's claim without tracking it down, and are free to replace the claim with something based on the sources we have found. John's suggestion of posting the removed material on the talk page may be appropriate, but seems unnecessary since the material will still be present in the history. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I understood what you mean, but my point was (still is) that your approach still involves manually selecting the contentious material. But even if the review process can be shortened by deleting many edits on sight (due to not-AGF), as you suggest and I agree, this manual review process will still take us years. We need a less cumbersome and time-consuming method. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

OK GPM, then I must oppose wholesale deletions. A flawed article or section, with appropriate warning flags, still provides valuable material to the reader. I'm a believer in the concept that "the perfect is the enemy of the good" and so consider such a flawed discussion to be better than nothing. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:00, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

No problem, as I said, we are in the midst of a dilemma: wholesale deletions won't win a majority here, but the current hand-picking method is clearly insufficent, too, and perhaps even a greater disservice to the reader in its inefficiency. I don't know what to do but we should not stop looking for solutions. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:26, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

One technique I've used when I found a passage misusing a source is to do a search on a characteristic phrase from Jagged's edit or his source, which turns up identical edits, that can then be released. Since Jagged made edits in bulk that way, we can do wholesale reverts the same way. It doesn't focus on pages that Jagged edited to find the problem edits, as the Cleanup page does, but it does focus on known problem edits wherever they are. Unfortunately, it doesn't make it clear when a page is finally cleaned up, but it's a practical technique to make progress. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Cleaning up "firsts": One characteristic of Jagged's misreading of sources was to take a statement that a certain scholar did X and transform it into an assertion that the scholar was the first to do X. Since history of science is not that much concerned with who did what first, but with how and why a scientist did something, it is an improvement historiographically (and usually in terms of accuracy) to remove those priority claims. Searching an article in edit mode for "first" (and for similar terms like "earliest") can rapidly lead to a number of significant improvements. Here's an example on a Userfied version of Science in the Middle Ages. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:22, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Certainly true, but it also shows the limits of the editing approach in comparison to deletion. For example, the modified assertion that "Ibn al-Nafis laid the foundations for circulatory physiology, as he described the pulmonary circulation" is still not correct, not even for Islam. This is only an ex post construction pour honneur by frustrated modern historians who discovered his forgotten manuscripts in the 20th century, hundreds of years after the actual basis for circulatory physiology was laid elsewhere, in Europe. Ibn al-Nafis findings were only an isolated occurrence, disconnected from the true history of this medical branch whose chapters were written by European scholars without knowledge of al-Nafis' work. These subtle, but crucial details one only knows when one has read the references by oneself as you know best from your profession. Modifying Jagged's edits is thus a bit like repairing a ruinous house where you never can be quite sure where the terminal cracks hide behind the new coat of paint. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:54, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not like the idea of removing the pointy bits of Jagged's text like "first" because the result would look much more plausible and unlikely to attract future scrutiny. The only helpful thing would be to completely cleanup each article (or at least a section in an article) in a single edit (or several edits completed within a day or two). Another factor, is that if X removes phrases like "first", and Y comes along later, Y now has to wonder whether X has finished the cleanup: If X thinks the current text is ok, why should I investigate further?. Johnuniq (talk) 03:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

GPM's comment seems to understand history as only being the story of the main stream of events. History as it is now practiced focuses as much on the curious byways, the dead ends, and the promising occurrences that never came to fruition. I don't know enough about al-Nafis to know what his influence was in the Islamic world, but the fact that his work on the pulmonary circulation was preserved suggests that he had some influence.

You both seem to seeking to purify Wikipedia by purging it of error, yet given its nature, even if one article were to be free from error for a moment, some editor would come along and change it for the worse. Wikipedia will always remain a flawed, but useful, encyclopedia. I'm willing to tolerate the many imperfections left by biased or incompetent editors, since the perfect is the enemy of the good. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 04:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Johnuniq's suggestion that it would be best to complete the edits in a day or two is a wonderful ideal, but I don't think it corresponds to an achievable reality. In practice, we'll make corrections to articles as we find them, but leave the warning templates up and leave the article listed on the cleanup page until we're satisfied enough with the article to be willing to sign off on it. I see no source of confusion here, only a process of slow, incremental improvements. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:33, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Editing Islamic science

Since the cleanup project will involve the major editing or removal of substantial sections on Islamic science and culture, I thought it would be worthwhile to post some thoughts on the historiography of Islamic science here:

Historiography of Islamic science

The achievements of Islamic science–and particularly of Islamic astronomy with which I am most familiar–have been recognized for centuries since the publication of Delambre's classic Histoire de l'astronomie du moyen-âge (Paris, 1819). Delambre and his successors have repeatedly chronicled the mathematical sophistication and observational precision of the astronomers who lived and worked in the Muslim world. The assumption that it is somehow legitimate to misinterpret sources in order to further inflate these substantial achievements is deeply insulting to anyone who recognizes the nature and extent of the Islamic contribution to the sciences.

For some, the desire to restore balance by inserting discussions of Islamic achievements, especially of achievements in the sciences, into Wikipedia rests on the assumption that, in the past, European scholars have ignored these achievements. That assumption needs to be critically evaluated. In addition to Delambre's study, mentioned above, more popular studies have continued his pattern, with their discussions of medieval astronomy focusing almost exclusively on the astronomy of the Islamic world.

• Arthur Berry, A short history of astronomy, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons), 1910.
• Anton Pannekoek, A history of astronomy Dover Publications, 1989, ISBN 0486659941.

Further serious treatments on the sciences in Islam can be found in such sources as the Dictionary of Scientific Biography and the Encyclopedia of Islam.

Turning to more specialized works, I was recently looking at a study of the works of al-Zarqāli. It was published in 1998 as volume 40 of the series of reprints on Islamic Mathematics and Astronomy published by the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the University of Frankfurt. This volume was a collection of more than a century's articles on al-Zarqāli and his influences that had been published by Moritz Steinshneider in Rome, Gustav Eneström in Stockholm, Armin Wittstein in Leipzig, Maxmilian Curtze in Leipzig, Paul Tannery in Montpellier and Paris, Eilhard Wiedemann in Erlangen, José María Millás-Vallicrosa in Rome, Madrid, and Paris, and Toni Schmid in Copenhagen. A cursory examination of the University of Frankfurt Institute's list of publications shows that the reprint series Islamic Mathematics and Astronomy reached to 113 volumes, Islamic Medicine to 99, and Natural Sciences in Islam to 90.

The evidence indicates that for almost two centuries European historians of science have been presenting both the details and the broad overview of the sciences in Islam. Wikipedia articles should be founded on these serious historical sources, which continue to be published by reputable scholars from all continents and with a wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The misinterpretation of one's sources has no place in Wikipedia; given the abundance of serious historical scholarship on Islamic science, neither is there any need to turn to unreliable sources. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with your proposal, Steve. And I think we should get rid as soon as possible by some of Jagged´s fvourite bad quality sources, like "muslimheritage", "science and technology in Islam" and "famous muslims". In my opinion, this are the worst sources he has ever used.--Knight1993 (talk) 00:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Afd:List of largest empires

An article to which Jagged 85 was the main contributor is considered for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of largest empires (5th nomination). Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:11, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Science in medieval Islam

I have put a "misuse of sources" section at Talk:Science in medieval Islam. I am mentioning it here because:

• A massive amount of Jagged material still exists in that article, and a discussion on a feasible cleanup plan would be helpful.
• I used a script to generate a summary of Jagged's edits (it combines any sequence of consecutive edits into one diff, which reduced the number of diffs from 924 to 113). While the script is not suitable for general release, I would be happy to run it on any articles wanted.

I made a suggestion at the article talk page that muslimheritage.com should be regarded as an unreliable source, and that material based on that source should be removed. While the source contains some valid information, it is clear that the site is based on an agenda that is similar to Jagged's style, and which is unacceptable here. Johnuniq (talk) 02:39, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe there is a consensus that muslimheritage.com is unreliable. A number of its papers contain serious factual errors and incorrect and misleading citations. It has been discussed at least once on reliable sources noticeboard. Another editor provided me with this link: [[6]] which I found useful in an initial attempt to remove citations to this source from several dozen history of science articles. Dialectric (talk) 18:04, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Wholescale deletion

Moved from WT:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Cleanup.

This page has been used as a justification for mass deletion of articles (such as Islamic ethics, Islamic economics in the world) to which Jagged85 contributed.

These are articles that consist partially (or perhaps mostly, but by no means entirely) of material written by Jagged85. User:J8079s has gone ahead and deleted these articles anyways. There are two problems with this:

1. there is no proof that 100% of Jagged85's edits violated wiki policies. Hence only those edits that violate policy need to be reverted.
2. these articles contain contributions from other editors like myself. I find it insensitive and insulting that a user would delete our contributions en masse without discussion.

Bless sins (talk) 22:14, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Furthering the first point, see Talk:List_of_persons_considered_father_or_mother_of_a_scientific_field#Mass_deletion_of_Jagged85.27s_edits for examples of Jagged85's contributions that were deleted under the summary "failed verification", yet they were actually stated in the sources.Bless sins (talk) 22:54, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Also see Talk:Moon#Confirmed_verification for another false "failed verification".Bless sins (talk) 23:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I have not yet had an opportunity to review the points you have made, but it is inevitable that cleaning up the problems raised by this case will involve more errors. I will examine the important issues you mention, and will reply here, and I hope others will comment. I hope you don't mind but I have moved your comment from WT:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Cleanup to here because general discussions should occur on this page (it is likely that fewer people are watching the Cleanup page, and it is important to keep the Cleanup page reasonably uncluttered). While errors will occur during cleanup, it is important to acknowledge that there is no doubt regarding the underlying case: Jagged 85 really did misrepresent sources and really did make up information which was then presented as fact in hundreds of articles (Jagged 85 has edited over 7800 articles so there may be severe errors in thousands of articles). Johnuniq (talk) 04:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

In many cases, Jagged 85's edits stretch the evidence to describe the subject of the articles in peacock terms to such an extent, that the wisest method to revise these articles is to delete the many factoids used to support such claims and begin the articles again with a bare minimum of generally agreed upon elements. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 23:19, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

That, however, should not mean, deleting the entire article without a single comment on the talk page. I confess to not having edited wikipedia in sometime, but I don't see WP has changed to allow a single user to delete article without any sort of discussion on the talk page (AfDs were the norm perviously).

Secondly, any and all deletions should be of material that actually violates wiki policies.Bless sins (talk) 19:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I confess I don't wp:agf when reviewing jagged's edits (neither should you). I have left a note on User talk:Bless sins hoping to enlist him in our effort. I stand behind my deletions however I realize that we cannot balance through subtraction alone I'm going to put some notes on the talk pages and revert again.J8079s (talk) 00:21, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Whether the sources Jagged85 provided disagree with other sources is another matter. It is matter to be discussed by experts in the history of science (I'm not one, though I can try).

My (rather harsh) reaction was borne out of your edit summaries claiming that verification had failed. When I checked those sources myself, I found that to be completely untrue.Bless sins (talk) 19:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• Underlying questions. I think the entire confusion here stems from 2 underlying issues:
  1. I believe that before deleting a contribution made by Jagged85, the user should actually verify the problem (i.e. unreliable source, exagerration, made up reference etc.) In other words the contribution should not be deleted simply because Jagged85 made it.
  2. The second point that follows, something that I especially stress, one should not simply blank content, where the contribution was made overwhelmingly by Jagged85, but where other users also contributed. In fact, I see absolutely no justification whatsoever (regardless of your opinion of point 1) where it is ok to delete the contributions of a user with good conduct simply because of Jagged85's poor behavior on the same article.Bless sins (talk) 21:03, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Point one stems from a fundamental misunderstanding. It is the obligation of the person who adds material to an article to justify the material added. Failing such justification, it is permitted to remove such material. After an RfC like this one, extensive deletions are called for. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:09, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that "justification" is provided in the form of adding a source at the end of the sentence. I.e. no editor on wikipedia makes a formal justification on the talk page of every article for every sentence he/she contributes.

Extensive deletions may very well be a good idea. But do you think the deleting editor is obliged to check the accuracy/neutrality of every sentence he removes. Do you at least acknowledge that an editor should at least read every sentence of what he is removing? Or are you saying that just because Jagged85 wrote an article, and we find problems in some parts of the article, that is justification to remove the entire article?Bless sins (talk) 14:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you're talking about Science in medieval Islam which you've just tagged [7] (wrongly in my view: that isn't a helpful way to proceed) yuo're indulging in hyperbole: it isn't true that the whole article has been deleted. But it is true that article had enormous problems through J's edits William M. Connolley (talk) 14:43, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The whole of the following articles were deleted: Islamic ethics, Islamic economics in the world, Islamic metaphysics. False edit summaries were used to remove some other of J's edits that had no problems.

Almost all of Science in medieval Islam was deleted, esp. the parts that discussed Muslim scientists, scholars, texts, treatises. The same thing happened to Physics in medieval Islam. If it took Jagged85 years to write it, it might very well takes years to rewrite these articles (given that most editors are interested in deleting, not writing), until when the article will be biased from that fact that it understates (as opposed to Jagged's overstatements) Muslim contributions.

In any case, could you kindly provide your opinion on the question I rasied above: should Jagged's edits be deleted only after they are found to violate wiki policy, or should they be deleted simply because Jagged is their author? the two are not synonymous because I have found Jagged's edits that were inline with WP.Bless sins (talk) 15:11, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Where an editor has been found to misuse sources, add copyright information, or certain other things, on a scale such as is found here, the guidelines allow for material to be deleted pre-emptively, ie on the basis that its probably wrong because it was this editor's work.Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:52, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Could you kindly point me to the guidelines that allow such a thing?Bless sins (talk) 16:08, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

A perfectly reasonable question. The copyvio guidelines are here. The thing to note is that while Wikipedia welcomes content, certain kinds of edit - those that violate copyright, unsupported information on living persons particularly if it is in any way controversial, and misrepresentation of sources - are unwelcome and can be presumptively deleted. I've not looked into this case, so I don't know if Jagged's offence is mainly misrepresenting sources or using sources that Wikipedia does not consider particularly reliable (there seems to be a discussion above as to whether a heavily used source is reliable). If it is the latter, and it does not involve living personsl there is precedent that presumptive deletion is not appropriate, and instead reviewers should determine whether there are other sources that support or disprove this source. If this is the case, it is also possible for you to copy the content of redirected articles (none have been deleted) into your userspace, to verify whether there are other sources beside the dubious one.Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:51, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it - and certainly this from my own interactions - the problem is not copyvio. The problem is that the material added by J simply cannot be trusted. This is the key point: that he cannot be trusted to have accurately or unbiasedly quoted or paraphrased his sources. In this situation it is certainly better to remove the dubious material wholesale, otherwise it is a poision. It is better to be silent about a given thing than to mislead; or to risk misleading by known dubious material. Both in the sense of not deceiving the reader, and in encouraging subsequent writers. If an article has been stable for a while editors are naturally reluctant to remove text that looks reasonable, especially when apparently backed up by sources (that happen not to be easily verifiable) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:02, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for providing the guidelines for copyright violations. However, as William M. Connolley pointed out, it has not yet been shown that Jagged85 had a serious and repeated issue with copyright violations. And Jagged's edits do not seemed to have ventured into the domain of BLP.

There was discussion about the use of muslimheritiage.com. The (unreliable) site is not heavily used in any of the articles. (In Science in medieval Islam it constituted 6 out of 227 references, and seemed to have references less than 5 sentences).Bless sins (talk) 22:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

William M. Connolley, I guess that is the crux of our disagreement: you beleive that edits may be deleted on the basis of their author's previous editing practices, regardless of whether the edits in question violate or satisfy wiki policy. I'm saying this because I have found Jagged's edits that were deleted that did satisfy wiki policy.Bless sins (talk) 00:46, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Inevitably, some of J's edits that are actually fine will be deleted. That is just tough. Unless we have the resources to pore over every edit (which we don't) no other approach is possible. Without question, deletion in the fashion *is* within policy. Having a long tedious argument about in/out of policy will be a waste of time. You are free, I think, to argue that individual edits should be restored, and that can be done on the basis of those individual edits. Slapping on POV tags because articles have been reduced, though, just isn't helpful William M. Connolley (talk) 07:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

"some of J's edits that are actually fine will be deleted." I don't see how that's "within policy". Could you refer to a specific policy that supports your view? I think this dicussion should be moved to a WP talk page, except I'm not sure which one.Bless sins (talk) 21:00, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Wikilawyering esp.

• 2 Abiding by the letter of a policy or guideline while violating its spirit or underlying principles;
• 3 Asserting that the technical interpretation of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines should override the underlying principles they express;

also take a minute to read the RFC [8] if you wish to restore edits you must observe the guide lines that Jagged agreed to. J8079s (talk) 18:29, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

1. Consensus under Rfc is not binding. In particular, it does not bind people who were not parties to the Rfc. It should not ethically bind a party to the original agreement, when the consequences of the decision, or actions of other parties, differ from those originally proposed.

2. The remediation process has gone beyond the scope originally proposed, as evidenced by the lists of edits, and method of verification established at the beginning of the cleanup process.

3. The examples given for the quality of Jags edits are not sufficient evidence in themselves to justify the mass truncation or redirection of articles. In order to truncate articles based on a questionable editor, a sound scientific analysis must be performed to establish the overall accuracy rate of the edits in question. Due diligence.

Aquib (talk) 15:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Example of an analytic methodology: Quantifying the relative impact of an editor's contributions to an article

Just an example. Has a similar exercise never been performed on Wikipedia before?

Purpose of analysis

Determine the effects on the Islamic portal caused by a) Jag's edits and b) subsequent attempts to mitigate the damage using page truncation.

Use the resulting analysis to determine a way forward.

Note: Truncations should be halted until consensus is reached.

Proposed methodology

1. Collect the following master data sets

• All articles edited by Jag

• All articles upon which truncation was performed or attempted as part of the Jag cleanup.

2. Select a random sample article/version in the intersection of the two sets identified above, in it's natural state before Jag mitigation was applied.

3. Count assertions by below category in Jag's edits, for the selected sample, using only assertions extant in the selected version.

A. Blatant misuse of source in a unique assertion

B. Questionable use of source in a unique assertion

C. Remarkable unsourced unique assertion

D. Poorly sourced unique assertion (page number, for example)

E. Sound, sourced, remarkable unique assertion | or sourced unremarkable Aquib (talk) 19:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

F. Unremarkable unsourced unique assertion (need not necessarily be sourced)

G. Total unique assertions

Caveats:

• The data is susceptible to bias from miscategorization as to remarkability, soundness, etc.

• Unique assertions must be counted rather than individual edits in order to control for multiple edits performed in the process of bringing an assertion to a completed state.

Notes:

• Ownership for a unique assertion lies with the last editor to that assertion

• A thru F should add up to G Aquib (talk) 19:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

4. Article total unique assertions for all editors

H. Count total unique assertions by all editors for the article

5. Apply formulas to derive rates

Weight = G / H

Blatant = A / G

Questionable = B / G

Remarkable = C / G

Poor = D / G

Sound = E / G

Unremarkable = F / G

Unacceptable = Blatant

Worrisome = Questionable + Remarkable + Poor

Acceptable = Sound + Unremarkable

6. Compare with other similar articles and controls. Use weighted and unweighted data, trend across articles, across time, etc.

From this exercise, we may begin to make inferences as to the quality of the editor's work.

Proof of concept

Apply the methodology to a recently truncated article.

Determine the way forward

Once we have an analysis of the content, we can begin to discuss the pros and cons of truncation with respect to risk levels, wellbeing, enlightenment, responsibility, fairness, objectivity, relativity, WP policy. It's a beginning.

Aquib (talk) 18:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Nice theory. Not how Wikipedia works. Unfortunately, without teams of eager minions to do all this research, all the hard pressed volunteers are going to do after the first 8-10 fails is delete the lot, and the relevant policies and guidelines largely allow for this.Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:46, 9 October 2010 (UTC)