Talk:Carl Hewitt

Archive 1, to Dec 2007 blanking

Page protection

I've archived and protected this talk page because people were adding problematic material. As the article is currently protected from editing, there's no need for this to be open at the moment anyway. If anyone has a query, by all means e-mail me. Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Aactually, as it is protected from editing at the moment the talk page does need to be open for protected edit requests. Viridae^Talk 21:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If anyone has such a request, they can e-mail me or another admin. I'd like to keep it protected for a short time, Viridae. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 23:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah understandable. I am also open to making small, uncontroversial edits for people, they can request them on my talk page while this page is protected. Viridae^Talk 00:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not believe it is appropriate to protect an article talk page, and definitely not because of something like this. Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Removing discussion of articles in major newspapers from talk pages. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The consensus there is clearly that this should not be protected. As a fellow admin, I therefore ask SV to remove the protection. DGG (talk) 18:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I've replied on WT:BLP. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia ban

Can we mention (or even just link) this in the article?

• Kleeman, Jenny (2007-12-09). "Wikipedia ban for disruptive professor". Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved 2007-12-10. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

I know it may be a bit self-referential, but I think the article is still marginally relevant to the topic. Today, Wikipedia is big and if some prominent figure was banned from editing Wikipedia, that becomes an interesting fact. -- Taku (talk) 22:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think this is especially notable in the context of his overall career. Redquark (talk) 01:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Redquark. One article written more than a year after the event indicates that it's not that important. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe the Guardian article was triggered by recent events over the past couple of months during which Hewitt anonymously created and edited a series of new articles promoting his work. These articles have now been deleted, so it is not easy to recreate their history. However, the note at the bottom of the following page gives some idea of what has been going on: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_logic_programming&action=edit Logperson (talk) 17:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this is probably not a major event to the person, but since The Guardian is a major newspaper, to me, it seems to make sense to add a link to the newspaper article in this article. But if others think it's not worth even mentioning, then it's ok with me.-- Taku (talk) 12:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

Following a suggestion from Black Falcon, I've unprotected the page to allow people to discuss the Observer article for a few days, as some editors seem to feel that discussion is required. The suggestion is that the discussion will be blanked after a few days as a courtesy. I was thinking three days, although no one's going to blank it mid-sentence so if it takes a bit longer, that's fine. But the idea is to discuss it, wrap it up, then blank the discussion. I hope the editors here see that as a fair compromise. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, for starters then can someone explain to me why this isn't a reliable source? I understand not giving it much mention in an article, since Hewitt's notability isn't generally connected to it and so it should have at most a small mention (probably a sentence or two) but I don't see how the source is unreliable. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I have read the article in question, and have read Slim's arguments both here and at talk:BLP. I have seen no compelling reason to blank the discussion on the relevance of including a source to this article. As such, I have put the discussion back (see the section before).

SlimVirgin, I would suggest that instead of blanking the discussion again you make the case for what harm is done in keeping it in. The usual way of handling talk page discussions is to let them run their course and have them archived. Suppression and blanking of discussions go against the spirit of Wikipedia should not be used except in very good circumstances. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Well if we decide not to mention it at all courtesy blanking isn't so rare. We don't need to keep perfect archives of talk pages. I don't however see any good reason to extend a courtesy in this case. Transparency overides courtesy to banned editors especially when everything we are talking about is clearly factually accurate. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. The Guardian article mentions Hewitt complaining about users and admins harrasing him. This wiki article is already protected. A further reaction along having the talk page protected, and any discussion suppressed and blanked, is probably not the right thing to do given the circumstances. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

We can archive a link to the blanked discussion. In the future, the question of his alleged self promotion as verified by http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/09/wikipedia.internet will come up again, and we need to be able to point to where a consensus was found so we don't repeat the discussion unless new facts or new arguments arise. For my part, I see no good reason to raise the issue of self promotion in this article, nor to include http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/09/wikipedia.internet in the article. People self promote all the time and people edit Wikipedia with a conflict of interest all the time. Neither are usually notable, and I see nothing about this case that makes it notable. If other reliable sources make a point of dwelling on the allegation of his self promotion, then our reliable sources will have deemed it notable - but not until then. WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Sock puppets

I'm not sure that naming the list of sock puppets on this talk page is inapproriate. They're not banned from Wikipedia, merely banned from editing his articles. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Is a set of {{Notable Wikipedian}} boxes really the appropriate way to do this though? The single box links to his main account talk page, which links to the list of suspected sock puppets (which is more complete anyway), that's sufficient for enforcement of keeping him from using them to edit this article (I didn't know until you said, by the way, that there was a topic ban in place). An article talk page is more visible, and the "notable wikipedian" box provides less context. —Random832 16:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I've added a link to his suspected sockpuppets category to the box, is this sufficient? —Random832 16:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I think that covers it. Thanks. (I wrote a longer message, but it's more appropriate for WP:AN or the Village Pump.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)