Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard

Welcome – report issues regarding biographies of living persons here.
This noticeboard is for discussing the application of the biographies of living people (BLP) policy to article content. Please seek to resolve issues on the article talk page first, and only post here if that discussion requires additional input. Do not copy and paste defamatory material here; instead, link to a diff showing the problem. Search this noticeboard & archives Sections older than 7 days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III. Additional notes: Edits by the subject of an article may be welcome in some cases. For general content disputes regarding biographical articles, try Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies instead. Editors are encouraged to assist editors regarding the reports below. Administrators may impose contentious topic restrictions to enforce policies.

Alice S. Fisher

Comments are appreciated on whether a Senator’s opening statement from a Judiciary Committee hearing of Alice S. Fisher are appropriate to include in a nominee’s bio. Talk:Alice S. Fisher#Proposal to Delete Paragraph Using Only a Primary_Source JZ at LW (talk)

Shincheonji Church of Jesus: current alleged persecutions

Greetings

I wrote it to Oversight, who advised me to address it here instead (see their reply below).

Self-paste follows:

---

I may be overly sensitive here and inexperienced (see my edit and WP history) but I have just come across a danger of using a current event and a WP article as a basis for witch hunts, harm and more. I am using this tool for the first time and am typing it on a mobile early in the morning, so please excuse brevity and style.

The article is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shincheonji_Church_of_Jesus

the presumed danger here: https://en.shincheonji.kr/bv_covid19Response_9607 and my, maybe naive, public musings about it on its Talk page, diff: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Shincheonji_Church_of_Jesus&diff=943849273&oldid=943847663 [This talk section updated since then]

Please monitor it, lock it, or else tell me I am being paranoid here.

Best regards

Zezen, far away from Korea and without any COI

---

Oversight wrote: Unfortunately, the edits associated with your request cannot be suppressed under our policy <" original_font_attr="-1" original_line_height_attr="" style="">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight>;. If you think this matter needs attention from administrators or editors, please visit the appropriate noticeboard (<" original_font_attr="-1" original_line_height_attr="" style="">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Noticeboards>;). Thank you for sharing your concerns and please contact us again if you have any in the future.

Sincerely, Primefac The English Wikipedia Oversight team

Yousef Al Otaiba

There is currently information on the Yousef Al Otaiba page that doesn't abide by WP:BLP guidelines, including inferences of wrongdoing that aren't directly supported by the sources and information about other people that is adding undue weight to the insinuations. I have been trying to improve the article for several months by using a more neutral tone and reorganizing to give proper weight to negative topics, but my edits have continually been wholesale reverted by another editor. I've tried to work with this editor, but received few responses until I attempted to make my proposed changes. We're at an impasse and I would appreciate others' thoughts on the situation. You can review our discussion on the Talk page. Quorum816 (talk) 13:31, 7 April 2020 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yousef_Al_Otaiba#RfC_on_hacked_emails_section

Sorry, but I'm not really seeing what your complaint is. I looked at the talk page discussions and really can't figure out your reasoning. How are words like "double life" defamatory? If this is how the source described it, then that is how we should. Use of synonyms would be acceptable, but "partying with friends" has a completely different meaning. Also university bios are perfectly acceptable sources for certain kinds of info. Even other bios are acceptable, including autobiographies to a certain extent. Secondary sources are actually preferable to primary and tertiary (third party) sources. And so are notable opinions if properly attributed. In short, from the vagueness of the comments both here and there, I have no real clue what you see as the problem. Zaereth (talk) 19:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

My issue with this section, and the page in general, is that I've tried to edit it to better align with WP:BLP guidelines, but the edits have been reverted because of the size of the edit rather than the actual changes. If there is a disagreement with a certain part of the edit, others are more than welcome to go in and edit that part, but that doesn't mean the edit should be reverted entirely.

The discussion with Huldra has continually devolved into niggling over small phrases, like "double life", which I removed per WP:LABEL and WP:WEASEL, rather than discussing the larger issues on the page, including the irrelevant, and unrelated content that is giving undue weight (WP:UNDUE) to an event. Quorum816 (talk) 17:15, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, you see, that's all a fine generalization, but it still doesn't explain the problem. What you've written basically boils down to "another editor keeps reverting me". It doesn't tell me anything about the BLP issue, as you see it. I am trying to see what it is that you see as the BLP violation, so I'm asking that you explain it in detail from your point of view. From what I've seen, Huldra is having the same problem at the talk page. You say this is a BLP issue, but give no indication of how or why.

For example, "double life" is not a label. It is an action that someone does. The idiom is "leading a double life", which means a person is being this over here and that over there. For example, Superman leads a double life, both as Superman and as Clark Kent. If I have a wife in my home town, and secretly have another wife the next town over, then I would be out of my mind, but leading a double life. The idiom itself can be either good or bad, but it's not a label. An example of a label would be "gay", "straight", "republican", "democrat", "catholic", "muslim", "jerk", "saint", etc... These are things people are, not what they do.

Likewise, "double life" is not a weasel word. Weasel words are vague words of authority, meant to add credibility to statements. These tend to be words like "they say", "authorities indicate", "according to some", "scientists say", etc... For example, "Scientists say that global warming is a myth." The weasel words are used to lend credibility to the statement. It sounds good to the untrained ear, but what scientists? We would need to exchange that with a specific name. So that's why I say I'm not following your train of thought. If you could clarify, that may help.

This board is for BLP violations. If you think the problem is with the other editor, then WP:ANI would be the place to report it. If it's a simple content dispute, which is what it looks like, then you should use WP:Dispute resolution. Talk it out, and if that doesn't work, get a request for comments. But wherever you go, be specific. I hope that helps. Zaereth (talk) 18:15, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I've attempted to get additional opinions via WP:RFC, but no one has responded, hence why I posted here, I was looking for other editors to go to the talk page and weigh in on the discussion. If you feel it makes more sense to discuss this on WP:Dispute resolution, I will go there. Thanks. Quorum816 (talk) 19:37, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, dispute resolution is actually a process that you do, not a place you can go. RFC is a part of the dispute resolution process.

See, this is part of the problem, and I am really trying to help you here, but I need you to help me. I think we have a huge communication problem here. The same problem exists at the talk page, and I'm sure at RFC as well, which is likely why no one replied. I'm replying here, because I really want to help you break down this barrier, so we can all understand each other. (And frankly, you're lucky that anyone replied at all.)

I've read the talk page discussions, but I still don't know what the problem is, so I'm asking you to explain it --clearly as you can-- here, so I can understand what you mean. My guess, however (no offense) is that the misunderstanding may be on your part more so than the rest of us, but if I can clear it up I would be happy to help. Zaereth (talk) 19:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate the help. Here are the issues:

- WP:UNDUE: It’s 6 paragraphs long filled with excessive details about one instance of hacked emails. I.e. it includes all of the back-and-forth about hosting a Taliban Embassy in Abu Dhabi instead of just plainly stating the facts. It also veers far from the subject of the article in some cases, including when discussing Mohamed Fahmy.

- In some cases, the excessive details lead to guilt by association WP:BLPBALANCE: "observed the exploitation of trafficked girls in Abu Dhabi". This sentence insinuates that Otaiba was involved in human trafficking, but the source specifically states that he wasn't involved in the situation.

- Some of the extra details are sourced improperly: An opinion piece on the NYT, a blog/news outlet that isn’t credible/information isn’t verifiable (All Gov).

- Some of the emails that are detailed can only be found within an Intercept article. WP:PUBLICFIGURE notes that for something to be included, it must be able to be found in several, verifiable sources. I.e: According to The Intercept, one of Al Otaibas friends, Roman Paschal, expressed that he allegedly observed the exploitation of trafficked girls in Abu Dhabi.

- Finally (and I realize this isn’t directly related to BLP) the section is just confusing and includes typos and run-on sentences (contributing to the undue weight): “In other emails, he described how the Emiratis have had a more bad history with Saudi's than anyone else and has warred against them for 200 years over Wahhabism.”

Again, the edits I proposed did not try to hide any of this information, but presented it in a cleaner way that sticks to the facts. Quorum816 (talk) 18:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

User:Zaereth Just wanted to check in and see if you saw this, thanks! Quorum816 (talk) 19:24, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Kiki Camarena

A host of high-quality academic sources discuss the possible or even probable role of the CIA in killing the DEA agent Kiki Camarena, back in the mid-1980s. There's an academic review that summarizes other academic and journalistic writings on the topic, titled "Spies, Assassins, and Statesmen in Mexico’s Cold War", published in Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (Amsterdam Iss. 103, Jan/Jun 2017, pp.143-155) and written by professor Wil Pansters, head of the Department of Social Sciences of University College Utrecht:

In May 1984, the influential journalist and columnist Manuel Buendía was brutally shot in the back in the centre of Mexico City... In a painstaking investigative process, the authors along with other journalists in Mexico and the U.S. became convinced that the Buendía and Camarena killings were linked, and much of the book is about the Bartleys trying to put the different pieces together. The most important element is that the interests behind both killings go beyond criminal interests and reach into the political domains on both sides of the border. In the mid-1980s, Mexico's one party regime confronted serious challenges, while the Reagan administration was deeply involved in a Cold War battle against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Buendía and DEA agent Camarena had each separately discovered that the CIA was running a dark network, which involved Mexican and Central American drug traffickers that imported cocaine into the U.S. and facilitated the movement of arms to the contras. Nicaraguan contras were trained at a Mexican ranch owned by one of the country's most notorious capos. CIA pilots flew many of the planes. The DFS functioned as the go-between, and hence involved the Ministry of the Interior. The Mexican army provided the necessary protection, and got a bite of the pie. Since the overriding concern of the CIA was the anti-Sandinista project, it trumped the DEA's task of combating drug trafficking, and covertly incorporated (or pressured) parts of the Mexican state into subservience. Buendía had found out about the CIA-contra-drugsDFS connection, which seriously questioned Mexican sovereignty, while Camarena learned that the CIA had infiltrated the DEA and sabotaged its work so as to interfere with the clandestine contra-DFS-traffickers network. They knew too much and were eliminated on the orders of the U.S. with Mexican complicity. Later official investigations attempted to limit criminal responsibility to the dirty connections between drug traffickers, secret agents and corrupt police, leaving out the (geo)political ramifications.

The review quotes from "Eclipse of the Assassins. The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía," by Russell H. Bartley and Sylvia Erickson Bartley, University of Wisconsin Press, 2015. That book concludes,

The preponderance of evidence... persuades us beyond any reasonable doubt that [journalist] Manuel Buendía was slain on behalf of the United States because of what he had learned about U.S.-Mexico collusion with narcotics traffickers, international arms dealers, and other governments in support of Reagan administration efforts to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Camarena was... killed for the same reason.

When I tried to add this information to Camarena's biography, over a year ago now, the content was reverted with promise of discussion. No discussion has occurred. Help would be appreciated. -Darouet (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Just put it back in. This isn't a BLP issue -- he is long dead... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:32, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

@Nomoskedasticity: it's done, here [1]. -Darouet (talk) 15:59, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Still unresolved

The content is again being removed [2], and without any explanation other than "fringe sources." But the sources being removed are academic and also from the mainstream press, and the Justice Department has reportedly opened an investigation into the issue. Jaydoggmarco can you please comment? -Darouet (talk) 12:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Maybe the CIA are the ones removing the content..?

Firejuggler86 (talk) 18:53, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Turley Richards

• Turley Richards (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Good evening,

I wrote to you July 16, 2019 regarding violations of this Wikipedia page. You acted very quickly and removed the violations and I thank you for that.

I am sorry to say, that the young woman has again entered the same information, albeit with nominal different wording. I am hoping that this is enough to take further action to ensure that this person is not allowed to add this defamatory information in the future.

I am copying and pasting my original request from last July. Please help!

BLP message board

I believe that information posted to this page is in violation of the guidelines for Biographies of Living Persons. I have attempted twice to delete the information, and my edit has been reversed, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Turley_Richards&action=history. Please keep in mind, I am a novice editor to Wikipedia, however as an award winning writer, am willing to receive feedback on content and style. Thank you in advance for your consideration of this serious matter.

1. "Avoid gossip and feedback loops" As Richards was never charged and/or arrested, and the country prosecutor declined to pursue the complaint, inclusion of this television expose, although factual in it's report of the original complaint, is not relevant to a disinterested article about the subject. The event occurred 16 years and 8 months ago, and is not relevant (by Richards' statement) to how he conducts business today.

2. "Public figures" the following is copied and pasted from this section: "If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out. If the subject has denied such allegations, that should also be reported."¹ As there exists only one third party source, the content about this television expose should be deleted. In addition, Richards' denial of the allegations is not reported.

3. People who are notable, but not well known. This rule states the following: "Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care; in many jurisdictions, repeating a defamatory claim is actionable, and there are additional protections for subjects who are not public figures." Due to personal relationship with the subject (wife,) I have knowledge that this article has greatly adversely affected Richards' reputation and livelihood.

4. People accused of a crime. Please refer to the following: " For relatively unknown people, editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations and arrests do not amount to a conviction." See comments regarding #1 above. This point is also relevant to "false light" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_light

5. Images. In the linked news expose, Richards states he does not authorize his image to be captured and used by the news station. Since Richards is blind, and could not see the camera, inclusion of this link violates Wikipedia's rule for situations where the subject did not expect to be photographed.

In closing, please be aware that Richards is a 78 year old, blind man, who until 9 months ago was revered in his community.  This article has virtually ended his career, even though he has coached hundreds of other individuals over 28 years with no incident reported.  It is of note, that the story was originally added to his Wikipedia page by a parent of an individual referenced in the news expose.

^i> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons></ref>

Disruption at Douglas V. Mastriano

• Douglas V. Mastriano (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• DrWillow (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• F&INerd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

See history. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:36, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

~ DrWillow Continues to remove content that maintains a NPOV, is verifiable and is not original research while adding sections that can be considered original research and does not maintain a NPOV.

The user seems to have some conflict of interest in the page as they continue to reference a "Adams county opposition" in their edits.

Examples of removed content include section about controversial statements made on the Senator's Official Campaign Facebook page that have been covered in the news.

Section Follows:

"Mastriano has been the subject of a number of controversies over his statements made on his campaign's official Facebook page. On May 7, 2019, Mastriano was accused of spreading Islamophobia after sharing several posts on his campaign Facebook page targeting Muslims. Mastriano has never retracted the controversial posts or addressed their content."

Sections removed also include local officials concerns about Mastriano.

~ DrWillow continues to add content that does not maintain a NPOV and is unsourced.

174.55.102.53 (talk) 22:37, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

The content of the page has been trimmed down here by User:Deacon Vorbis. Use the talk page if you think that any of the removed content ought be restored. User:MelanieN has applied semiprotection through 18 April, and has MelanieN (talk) 02:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)diff=950991924&oldid=950954921 left a vandalism warning here for User:DrWillow. Let any administrator know if problems continue. EdJohnston (talk) 19:34, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

There have been additional instances of a new account attempting to delete the entire cited controversy section. Other edits have been made to make the section more readable and better flesh out the section which do not seem to be disruptive. 174.55.102.53 (talk) 01:44, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

New User F&INerd has pattern of disruptive editing nearly identical to DrWillow requesting SPI investigation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/F%26INerd and requesting semiprotected status for the article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection#Douglas_V._Mastriano Hyderabad22 (talk) 23:06, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I've updated the article further with better section titles and a more NPOV overall for sections of the article. Overall the entire article needs a heavy edit to remove politicized information that is in nearly every section of the article. I'd really like the help of a neutral editor that's experienced with bios of living persons to go through this article. Most of it reads like a promotional piece copied from the subjects campaign website. I'm concerned about continued disruption by who I assumed to be the subject or related to the subject of the article. The user has not disclosed their COI and continues to edit the article. Hyderabad22 (talk) 17:40, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Update: DrWillow and F&INerd have been blocked as sockpuppets. -- MelanieN (talk) 02:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Defense

There seems to be a design here that is biased and prevents others to add to the page in question, time and time again- while also stopping others the chance of upholding Wiki policies to keep information open and without libel. This disrupts the use of properly cited sources, instead fabricating the situation for biased editors against the page in question, thus breaking policy. In other matters, the majority of section 'Controversy' were indeed not removed, but rather updated with properly cited sources to prevent libel and uphold Wiki standards. As stated under Disruptive editing, "if an editor treats situations that are not clearly vandalism as such, that editor may harm the encyclopedia by alienating or driving away potential editors." Has this not been the case regarding this page? I call for the investigation into this matter, from the wiki community that salutes to uphold fair and honest standards. There has been constant efforts to remove information, such as a "Military decorations and badges" which is perfectly innocent - thus bequeathing Disruptive Editing, enacting hypocrisy.

F&INerd (talk) 03:41, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Anjana Om Kashyap

Resolved

 – Vandalism has been reverted and page semi-protected for a year on April 20. -- LuK3 (Talk) 20:47, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anjana_Om_Kashyap

Plenty of vandalism on this page

Max Baer Jr

The article cites Filmography, List of Credits, 1982, The Circle Family, unknown role, Television Movie. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286546/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 states that Max Baer Jr. played the part of Hearst Circle.

Arundhati Roy

An editor keeps re-adding the same BLP violations to the lead as seen in the following: diff1, diff2, diff3, diff4.

I tried explaining to them what it is they are doing wrong but they have made no attempts to discuss the subject instead become antagonistic (accused me of being communist?) and kept on re-inserting the same lines. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 04:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Update since then: I added a warning template on their page in diffA, which prompted them to comment on my talk page in diffB (where there is a ongoing discussion) and to re-insert the same but modified addition on the article in diff5 albeit not in the lead this time and in a new section. I tried to preserve the contents of the addition while removing original research in diffC but they reverted it in diff6. At this point, it has gotten quite edit war-ish and I do not intend to continue. I am requesting additional eyes on the topic which would be very helpful for resolution. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 17:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

@Tayi Arajakate: There's nothing to resolve here because what was written by the now reverted user is an extremely POV, tabloid-like take on Roy's actual works about the complexities of terrorism and the role of state institutions. This user debased Roy's decades-old and consistent commentary - regardless of anyone's agreement or disagreement - into a tabloid piece about an "investigative journalist" who revealed to the world Roy's "conspiracy theories" - a reference which is a flagrant BLP violation in this context.--Maleschreiber (talk) 02:07, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

David Olshanetsky

David Olshanetsky Sources do not have any information relevant to what is written. Everything is subjective. Important claims such as "he has been shown by Tumblr as the most popular male account in Europe, and fifth most popular account globall." have no source and no year, so there is no verifiability to the claim. Claims to have collabed with major companies but they dont provide any links to them and nothing comes up if you google it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.130.215.94 (talk) 21:06, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Is this person even notable enough to have a Wikipedia article...?? Kind of looks like self promotion.

Firejuggler86 (talk) 19:13, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Carl Benjamin's rape joke

Editors who were previously involved,
and the stance they took.

Make a change	Keep It As Is	Controversies Section	Delete It
Ryk72	107.77.221.57	Fippy_Darkpaw	Sourcerery
SVTCobra	107.77.221.156
Alduin2000	GergisBaki
LedRush	NorthBySouthBaranof
Wefa	Newimpartial
173.176.159.21	Nomoskedasticity
Alex_B4	Grayfell
EatingFudge	Bilorv
Kirkworld
Amaroq64

Carl Benjamin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) once responded to a political opponent that he "wouldn't even" sexually assault her. He then later followed it up with a joke that "with enough pressure" he "might cave" on that stance, "but nobody has that much beer".

That is accepted. What's contentious is how to present that information. Currently, this information is presented as a summary in the lead and body of the article. However, it breaches NPOV by omitting important information, making it seem more offensive than what the reporting really said.

Numerous editors have seen the NPOV issue and attempted to fix it. They've typically tried to add the full quote, or parts of it. But they've always been reverted and challenged by other editors, who argued WP:QUOTEFARM and that it should be succinct.

The editors who wanted neutrality eventually gave up, and the editors who wanted to keep it simply outlasted their opponents. No consensus was ever achieved.

I have reviewed their arguments over the rape joke, in the talk page, and archive 5 and archive 6.

I proposed a compromise that should satisfy both neutrality and succinct-ness: Just improve the summary. This makes it neutral while maintaining succinct-ness.

Here is the compromise I proposed, and here is the talk section I created about it. I clearly laid out and quoted the sources that support my proposed edit.

However, they won't accept my suggestion. Since I addressed the WP:QUOTEFARM and succinct-ness issue, they now argue their own personal interpretations of it, and falsely assert that there was a consensus.

They also call out my right-wing bias, which I'll admit to having. However, I am also challenging their left-wing bias.

The evidence of my bias: My editing history. I have been overzealous in the past, but I'm trying to do it the right way now.

My evidence of their bias: They continue to resist even though WP:QUOTEFARM has been addressed. Grayfell's personal views of my proposed change. Bilorv having a Feminist tag in his profile and removing it 9 minutes after accusing me of bias.

I have no evidence of bias from the other editors.

I believe this is an ideological conflict, and I'm escalating it so neutral editors can resolve the conflict. Amaroq64 (talk) 09:42, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

In support of the placement of editors on that table.

Discussion	Reasoning
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_5#additional_comments_about_raping_Jess_Phillips	An initial conversation between two users about adding the joke. Nothing much came of it, so I didn't put them on the table. But I am putting it here for completeness.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_5#Article_lead	Initially, Alduin2000 believed Carl Benjamin's later comments shouldn't be added to the lead, with GergisBaki wanting to add Carl Benjamin's view that it was a joke. Then Alduin2000 changed his mind and seems to concur that it should be included that it was a joke. Grayfell is here at this point giving his opinion of Carl Benjamin's joke. This section is more of a discussion of where things should go and how much should be put where. This is not part of the contentious argument. But I am putting it here for completeness.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_5#Phrasing_&_BLP	This subsection is where the contentious argument begins. Ryk72 and SVTCobra seem to have a problem with the neutrality. 107.77.221.57 and GergisBaki seem opposed to them on this. 107.77.221.156 seems to agree somewhat with GergisBaki, but doesn't have much relevant to say. Both IPs are possibly the same person, due to the way dynamic IPs work. I could see removing that second IP from the table though, since it doesn't take a definite position.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_5#Reliable_source_for_coverage_of_campaign_being_dominated_by_rape_joke	Another clash between GergisBaki and SVTCobra. Included for completeness.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_5#Lead_-_AGAIN	SVTCobra has a problem with the neutrality of the summary. NorthBySouthBaranof doesn't seem to think there's a problem with it. Alduin2000 re-enters the conversation to propose fixing the lead, concerned about being careful with BLPs. Nomoskedasticy initially seems onboard with SVTCobra and Alduin2000. GergisBaki and SVTCobra begin clashing again. LedRush makes a passing comment that it's a misrepresentation and violates BLP. This section is a nuanced discussion, so editors who want to be informed should read it and not just take my summary to represent what happened.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_5#Let's_try_this_again_(the_lede)	GergisBaki, Alduin2000 and SVTCobra seem to be trying to reach a compromise, though SVTCobra and Wefa have problems with the lead misrepresenting the subject. Ryk72 agrees that the lead should be short, but says litle else at this time. This section is also a nuanced discussion and should be read in full.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_6#A_return_to_a_sad_state	SVTCobra calls for shortening the lead, but this is because undue weight has been placed on the rape comments at that point, with GergisBaki clashing against him and Ryk72 over it. Newimpartial enters the conversation in agreement with GergisBaki, Sourcerery enters to suggest deleting it, and Fippy Darkpaw enters to suggest creating a controversies section to fix it, which Grayfell challenges. This is another nuanced discussion and should be read in full.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_6#Quoting_the_specific_rape_joke	GergisBaki now wants to add more comments, and Bilorv enters the conversation in agreement. SVTCobra argues that the lead is unbalanced again.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_6#Lets_Apply_the_BLP_guidelines	173.176.159.21 starts an argument over the neutrality of the article in general, not the specific rape joke. Included for completeness. I could see removing this IP from the table since they didn't target the joke in particular.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_6#Request_to_edit_the_Rape_comments_section.	Not about the joke in particular. Included for completeness.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin/Archive_6#I_literally_hate_Don_Sargoon._But_holy_NPOV_batman.	Not about the joke in particular. Included for completeness.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin#Including_the_"nobody's_got_that_much_beer"_comment_in_full	Alex_B4 and EatingFudge see a problem with neutrality and want to include the full quote, with Kirkworld supporting. Bilorv, and Grayfell opposed. Nomoskedasticity is now opposed. I enter the conversation here to propose my compromise.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin#Improvement_undone,_proof_of_double_standard?	EatingFudge clashes with Bilorv and Grayfell again.
Talk:Carl_Benjamin#How_to_summarize_the_rape_comment	I created this section to make my case. Opposed by Grayfell and Bilorv for various reasons, even though I addressed their WP:QUOTEFARM argument. I included and quoted many sources to support my suggestion, though they continue to use reasons not based in policy to oppose. Grayfell in particular uses a lot of personal interpretations to justify resisting the change.

Now that I've reviewed the discussions again, I see a couple of errors I made. Fippy Darkpaw proposed creating a new section for controversies. The table will be updated to reflect this.

173.176.159.21 complained about the neutrality of the article in general, not the neutrality of the rape joke, and could be removed. 107.77.221.156 could possibly be removed since they might be the same person as 107.77.221.57.
Amaroq64 (talk) 03:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it certainly is an ideological conflict on one side. It's very funny that Amaroq64 thinks that I am attempting to hide that I'm a feminist, as if they're the first alt-right SPA to argue that it is inappropriate for me to edit in alt-right topics because of that userbox rather than the umpteenth. I changed my userpage to highlight a much more important discussion than this one that any good faith editors reading this should go and participate in rather than wasting more editor time on this sealioning.

My edits to alt-right topics are not wholly negative; I trust that following Wikipedia policies will lead to the overall most accurate and reliable information we can give people. In this case I am motivated only by our policies on minimising the length of quotations where possible and of highlighting the short quotes that have been most widely covered by reliable secondary sources—and in fact I don't actually believe that quoting "pressured into rape" rather than "rape" makes Benjamin look any better, so I certainly have no political agenda here.

It should be unsurprising that a table whose columns are labelled by ostensibly mutually exclusive positions "Keep It As Is" or "Make It Neutral" does not tell the actual story of what longstanding consensus on this page has been.

Given their contribution history, Amaroq64 has made it clear what their intention is on this website—introducing alt-right bias to articles—and I propose that they should be topic banned from alt-right and far-right topics, broadly construed. If this forum isn't the right place to decide upon that then I plan to raise the issue at WP:ANI. — Bilorv (talk) 11:54, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Amaroq64, we should reflect reliable independent sources and avoid, to the greatest extent possible, ever quoting a word that Benjamin himself says. Guy (help!) 22:25, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

for a BLP of a public person that is a completely inappropriate suggestion. Why should we consider Benjamin's texts only filtered through the lens of biased third parties? Wefa (talk) 18:59, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Support the additional material in the quote. Though the comment was off color, the context is critically important here. Using partial quotes is very problematic in a case like this. Additionally, this is a BLP so if there is a conflict with how the material is presented we should use the "best case" possible. Leaving out context is not that case. Springee (talk) 12:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

"off color"??? and: the context somehow makes it better?? (Personal attack removed) Nomoskedasticity (talk) 12:57, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

In what sense is the context "critically important" here? Trying to plumb the nuances of a joke about sexual assault is like asking whether the problem with the Nazis was that they chose ugly uniforms. Moreover, we need to bear in mind that the quote in question is a serious affront to a living and serving politician. While the event is certainly notable, I don't believe exhaustive detail is required. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

that remark was an answer to a "what if someone hold a gun to your head" type hypothetical question. And all that done was in a roundtable situation in a humour-laden exchange of thoughts. That's the context. Wefa (talk) 15:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

• I do not think adding "be pressured to" as suggested by Amaroq64 is needed or appropriate. There is no difference between "might be pressured to rape" and "might rape", and it is certainly not "important information". The comment "making it seem more offensive" suggests to me that Amaroq64 believes being "pressured" is a justification or at least partial justification for rape (suggesting that a person saying they would rape someone without being pressured is "more offensive"). Regarding adding additional parts of the quote to the article, I have not seen any persuasive reason for including more. The comment was universally condemned by reliable sources, and so the idea that additional "context" is needed so that readers can understand it was a "joke" seems to go contrary to NPOV. When reliable sources can be adequately expressed in prose, that is preferable to including quotations. We already include Benjamin's defense of his statements. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 16:23, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  I disagree. On a legal and moral standpoint, rape is justified (or at least not unlawful) in situations like direct and effective coercion or duress. (the "gun-to-your-head" scenario). And by his "there is not enough beer for that" answer, Benjamin purposely illustrated the silliness of the question posed to him. It was a question posed to him in a friendly, humorous setting and he reacted in a manner you would in such a context - honestly and with mild repudiation of the question. Again - context matters. Wefa (talk) 15:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

  It doesn't appear that the quote in the wiki article matches that found in the sources. This is a small change and there is no reason not to make this better align with RSs given this is a BLP and contentious material. Additionally, if the OP's information is correct it does seem that a majority of involved editors support some level of change in this direction. I would suggest a RfC might be a way to address the concern. Springee (talk) 16:54, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  Of course the information is not correct. For instance, Ryk72 objected to such text as speculating on whether and under what circumstances he might rape [Phillips] (no longer present) and to mentioning the rape comments at all, not what I'd call "Make It Neutral". SVTCobra argued for less text on the rape comments, precisely the opposite of what Amaroq64 is suggesting. etc. etc. — Bilorv (talk) 20:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  Ryk72 objected to ... mentioning the rape comments at all. @Bilorv:, I don't recall that I took such a position, and on review of the Talk page archives, can't find anything with my signature which supports that statement. I do find that I wrote I have no objection to a well phrased inclusion of the events, which is in contradiction. Diffs, please? - Ryk72 ^talk 00:44, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

  @Ryk72: I was talking about your position on mentioning the comments in the lead specifically (the context of this discussion), which I believe you opposed on multiple occasions with arguments like As above, this article is about Benjamin, not Phillips and This level of detail is unbalanced, per WP:BALASP, and off-topic. We're well in the weeds if we're documenting every tweet & interview comment of the article subject, let alone those of other persons. As above, this article is about Benjamin, not Phillips. Nonetheless I see that I've oversimplified your perspective (though not so egregiously as Amaroq64 listing you in a column heading "Make It Neutral" alongside many other editors with vastly differing views), for which I apologise and have struck that part of the comment. — Bilorv (talk) 08:47, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

  The comment of mine (singular not multiple) as quoted, is, in context, explicitly about inclusion of the full text of a tweet not by the article subject. (See: here) It is, therefore, not an objection to mentioning the comments <of the article subject> in the lead. - Ryk72 ^talk 12:53, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

  The table is correct. I collated the users by which policy stance they were taking in the bigger picture, NPOV or overriding NPOV with "keep it succinct". Ryk72 and SVTCobra both ultimately argued that we are misrepresenting the rape joke and that should be fixed. I think you just tried to sow doubt about my honesty to make it easier to dismiss my case. Amaroq64 (talk) 21:58, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  Amaroq64, I don't think it's appropriate to include a list of individuals unless there was something like an RFC or other clear way of collecting the information like that from multiple people. This list seems to be collected from multiple conversations about sometimes different language, and then makes assumptions about a "bigger picture". The list also has the implicit misrepresentations that the users under so-called "make it neutral" are agreeing with your point, when they have not said that, and that the users under "keep it as is" are arguing in favor of it not being neutral, when that is not what they have said either. I think it would be better to remove your list of names and allow those editors to speak for themselves. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 22:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  I find the table misleading. And I mean no offense to you, as you obviously put a lot of effort into creating it. The problem is that is turns consensus into a tally of votes. But consensus doesn't work like that. Consensus is a weighing of arguments, meaning that one person with a good argument can beat a whole slew of poor arguments that fail to convince anyone. It's like the old saying, there are three kinds of lies, little white lies, bold face lies, and statistics. I'm not by any means calling you a liar or anything, but I have to take the table with a grain of salt because it has no real bearing on consensus. Zaereth (talk) 22:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  I can agree that it's better for them to speak for themselves. I did comb through the various discussions and categorize them broadly based on which policy they mainly seemed to be arguing, and I can understand the potential problem with that. But I also think removing the table would remove evidence that there's a contentious issue and that there have been many editors who wanted to fix the NPOV issue. I can quote any user on that table to justify where I put them, if necessary. Amaroq64 (talk) 22:21, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  For what it's worth, I notified every single editor on that table that this discussion is happening. Amaroq64 (talk) 22:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  I could improve the table by changing "Keep It As Is" to "Keep It Succinct". In its current form, it's based on the fact that it seems those users wanted to prevent it from being changed, regardless of what arguments were presented to them for why it should be changed. Amaroq64 (talk) 23:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  You made a lot of assumptions in this list and several editors have said it is misleading. I think you should be removing it entirely at this point. No one needs "evidence that there's a contentious issue". If you want a list of names, then start an RfC and allow editors to weigh in themselves. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 23:52, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  What's the difference between inviting them all to this discussion and creating an RfC? The "Keep It As Is" column could be categorized better, but every editor in the "Make It Neutral" column argued that it has an NPOV issue and wanted to do something about that. Amaroq64 (talk) 00:09, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

  I did this with the understanding that not everyone has the time and energy to spend hours looking through the archives and sources. So I took the burden of proof on myself to let anyone see with a casual glance that there's a problem that can't be solved without uninvolved input. Removing the table would require everyone who sees this discussion to spend hour(s) going through it themselves, and makes it easier for my ideological opponents to dismiss that there's an issue. Amaroq64 (talk) 00:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

  If you need to manufacture evidence that an issue is contentious, then something is amiss. You're taking the burden and skewing it, even if unintentionally. The table gives a false impression. It's like when commercials use a graph to show how much better their product is than the competition's, but fiddle with the scale to make theirs look much better when there is really only a minute improvement. Unless you include everyone's comments into this table --in context-- it is just meaningless marketing.

• And another problem is that you are basing this upon your own interpretation of what these people said, which is most assuredly colored by your own biases and metaperceptional skills. And I don't mean that as an insult, this is a problem we all have in communicating with others. Only by seeing the real discussion in it's full context can others make their own determination of the consensus, the validity of those comments, and whether it is contentious in their minds or not. Zaereth (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

  Would it help if I put a clause under the table that it should not be considered an authority on the stances anyone took, just an illustration that there's a problem? I can quote every user in context, but that will take time, and this could be a more immediate fix. Amaroq64 (talk) 00:45, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

  I have added a collapsible table with links to the conversations that I based my placements on. I did find one error that seriously misrepresented one of the editors' stances, so I corrected their placement on the table. Amaroq64 (talk) 03:33, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Only two comments: 1) this is definitely the case that full context quotes from his are likely needed because editors can piece-part what he's said since to go either way. The prose should explain that after the comment, he was criticized for it, and he tried to explain himself, and that explanation should use full statements where possible without judgement for us to stay neutral and impartial. Yes, in general, no one should joke about rape, but it is not our place as editors to either villify nor whitewash that away, but simply document the controversy. 2) There is nearly no reason for this to be in the lede, given everyone else there. It's part of his failed campaign but there's no clear indication how much it affected it (minority party to start so before it was a snowball's chance). No need to scarlet-letter in the lede further beyond what can immediately be put there, its certainly not affect him long-term. --Masem (t) 17:34, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Masem, I would recommend you look through the published articles about Benjamin, as they seem to overwhelmingly note the rape comments. Going through Google and Google News as well, the rape comments seem to be the most frequently discussed aspect of Benjamin's life, even more so than the Gamergate controversy. I think it would be hard to justify including his UKIP candidacy without including the topic that is discussed in many if not most articles about his candidacy. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 17:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

In discussion of his candidacy in 2019 it's brought it, certainly, and while I know enough about him and have little respect for him, its also what needs to be recognized as mudslinging during an election. I'm not trying to say to whitewash it away, but I TONS of coverage in the March-Oct 2019 period, and then little beyond that from RS, all which to me is standard media reporting on the skeletons in the closet of a candidate (though it appears he may have even been investigated during that 2019 period though obviously nothing came about?) We have to be aware that while WEIGHT/UNDUE is important, the impact of election coverage media bias and mudslinging should be taken into consideration. In the period from 2016 up early 2019, only when he joins UKIP more commentary related to the rape statement, but appearing more in the context that UKIP is seen as this group of alt-right/far-right people. Maybe there's some reason to keep something in the lede, but the lede should be super-high level. What's in there now I think is even too detailed because we're talking naunces of what he said and in what context. I don't know immediately how I'd rephrase what's in the lede, but I'd fully avoid the quotes there if possible. Maybe "Benjamin's off-colour commentary related to rape in 2016 towards Jess Phillips dominated his 2019 EP candidacy." --Masem (t) 18:27, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure you know this, but UKIP were a pretty major party when it came to EU elections, both because of proportional representation and their main-issue policy being rather pertinent to EU elections. It wasn't obvious just how badly they'd do in 2019. The rape commentary dominated coverage of Benjamin's UKIP candidacy and so is the best way of summarising this party of the body, and a major part of Benjamin's career. I don't oppose using quotes as long as it is mentioned e.g. "Benjamin's widely-condemned comments about rape in relation to Jess Phillips dominated his 2019 European Parliament candidacy". Though I think this is rather the opposite direction to what Amaroq64 wants us to move towards... — Bilorv (talk) 20:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm just saying for the lede, that's not the point to get into the nitty gritty of the mess that happened. What I read from searching, any more details beyond a simple high level statement (yours is better than mine) requires more explanation for us to stay neutral. That's fine to expand upon in the body, and I don't have opinions to how much more to expand there, but the lede is not the place for that expansion. --Masem (t) 20:15, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree the lead could be shortened and goes into too many details. My previous attempt to shorten it at least a little was later reverted by GergisBaki [3]. I would support Bilorv's suggested summary of the dispute in the lead. However, I do think that it needs to be addressed in the lead in at least some way. I also want to note to Masem that the lack of coverage since October 2019 (which is not a long time) seems to be more due to the lack of coverage of Benjamin generally, while more recent articles that talk about him still often mention the comments about Phillips. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 20:35, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Also wanted to add that I agree with fully avoiding the quotes in the lead in a rewrite if possible. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 23:22, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Masem, I don't think it was mudslinging. It was a valid use of his own words to demonstrate his unfitness to serve as an MP (a view the people of his constituency apparently endorsed). Guy (help!) 22:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Not trying to in any way validate his statements with this, but just that we should be using more care in reading the media's intentions during the election. We should not be approaching this from the editorial standpoint point that "it validates his unfitness" no how much one believes that true, but should "how much the media believed it validated his unfitness". Subtle difference, probably not a bit impact on the prose at the end of the day, but its important going in right to resolve the neutrality issue. --Masem (t) 23:17, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Masem in regarding the use of full context quotes etc. I don't know enough about the article subject to say if this material should or should not be in the lead so I'm abstaining from that question. Springee (talk) 17:58, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Presenting "Make it neutral" as an objective fact is a good demonstration of why editing the Carl Benjamin article is such a time-sink. YouTubers, especially those from Benjamin's corner, build careers on attention like this. It is in Benjamin's professional interest to be as evasive and inflammatory as possible, and trying to turn this into something other than a WP:FART is just helping him with his PR. As I said on the article's talk page, taking this issue to "dispute resolution" (which was that-a-way) is trying to drum-up wikidrama over an extremely minor detail. Benjamin's fans are not arbiters of "neutral", and Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion, so whatever adjustments are made will almost surely be a waste of our time in support of gossip. Grayfell (talk) 00:35, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

  You have evidence that I have a "right-wing bias", but you don't have evidence that the previous editors seeking neutrality were biased. Regardless, there is contention between numerous users other than me over whether he's being represented fairly. The BLP noticeboard is the better place to put this, because a living person having their reputation potentially damaged (more than merited) is important and is what this noticeboard is for. Amaroq64 (talk) 04:08, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Where did I say anything about you having a "right-wing bias"? Where did anyone say that? You shouldn't have introduced this to the discussion, since it doesn't matter. "Biases" are not some objectively measurable thing you are capable of seeing and we are blinded to. Your comments about this imply that you believe your position is inherently "neutral". This is directly contrary to how Wikipedia determines a WP:NPOV, and also poisons the well for further discussion. We do not consider your personal degree of confidence in your own position when evaluating whether or not something is neutral. You are not qualified to describe the motives of other editors based on your own understanding of what is "neutral", and tabulating these into a table is not a productive use of anyone's time for that and many other reasons. Grayfell (talk) 04:57, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Support to make it neutral. I still dont understand how people make things say one thing when it is obvious from a prima fascia case that it says something else completely. Very tired also to see people doing this on bio page that normally should require a higher treshold of evidence as described in the BLP guidelines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.176.159.21 (talk) 04:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

• Looking at the current version of the lead [4], I think it could be improved by removing the parenthetical aside so that final paragraph reads like this: In 2016 in response to Member of Parliament, Jess Phillips' complaint that she frequently received rape threats from men online, Benjamin tweeted to her: "I wouldn't even rape you." Criticism of this comment and related remarks dominated press coverage of his European Parliament candidacy. The lead just needs to mention what's notable about this person. The "I wouldn't even rape you" bit is enough for a summary of the incident, and there's no need to paraphrase any more of it in the lead. In general, when someone is well-known for a few specific comments, then I think it's best to just present them in full in the article instead of trying to paraphrase them. Document what he said, and then why it's relevant. Also, I don't think that kind of —aside— really fits the encyclopedic tone we're going for. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 04:47, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

• I of course support all efforts to make it neutral. But how does one do that when opinions are so polarised? The most logical option should be that we present the data as un-manipulated as possible. Previously I recommended that the setup to his punch line be included. This was shot down as not being relevant, despite it giving proper context and being supported by the referenced source. Rather than try and address the lengthy comments above I’ll just offer my quick and dirty summary of what I think would be a reasonable revision.

In May 2016, MP Jess Phillips' stated that rape threats are commonplace for her. In response to this Benjamin Tweeted "I wouldn't even rape you #AntiRapeThreats #FeminismIsCancer" and repeated this on his YouTube channel. This received moderate media attention where he refused to apologise. After Benjamin entered the 2019 European Parliament elections, the media revisited this tweet and continually brought it up to both Benjamin and Phillips. In response to the media’s focus on his old tweet, Benjamin released a mock blooper reel video. In which he attempted to rebuke the media by saying “I’ve been in a lot of trouble for my hardline stance of not even raping her. I suppose with enough pressure I might cave.” “But let’s be honest, nobody’s got that much beer.” Benjamin maintains that his statements were jokes, and that rape jokes are empowering to victims of rape because "it's a lot more empowering to not be controlled by jokes". Benjamin was investigated by West Midlands Police for the comments, and a police spokesperson said he was "dealt with by way of words of advice".

If you would like to inform yourself, you can watch the mock blooper reel or a video on how a joke that subverts expectations can be humorous. -EatingFudge (talk) 05:08, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Do you have citations for your italicized paragraph above? Dumuzid (talk) 06:21, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

• Red Rock Canyon, with respect, I've reverted your edit to the article directly because it's clearly a contentious situation and we do not yet have consensus for this new version of the text. — Bilorv (talk) 08:56, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay. That's fine. Maybe it's the wrong time to be bold. I just think that the current incarnation of the lead is very close to being fine, except for that issue, which just seems clearly inappropriate. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 09:48, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately, those proposed versions above are evidently false. Benjamin did not send this tweet in response to Jess saying she got rape threats. He sent it as a reaction to her publicly demanding substantial internet censorship because she got rape threats. That is an entirely different argument. Especially if you put it in the context that Benjamin was a well known critic of feminist youtubers, and that some such feminist youtbers have advanced the concept that criticizing their public statements constitutes harassment and must be sanctioned. For Benjamin, Philips was just another, more powerful player pushing the same line, and he responded to that open threat with a legally safe provocation on free speech grounds. It was Philips who brought the whole rape topic into the political debate and attempted to weaponize it, and it was Benjamin who reacted in a traditional British liberal fashion. All this can be seen easily from the primary sources - the various videos and texts that were published at that time by the participants. It can not be seen by reading the Guardian, though. There we find this caricature of a strange extreme right internet nerd unhealthily obsessed with raping Jess Philips. So the correct description would be something like >>In 2016 in response to Member of Parliament, Jess Phillips' demand for more extensive internet censorship because she frequently received rape threats online, Benjamin tweeted to her: "I wouldn't even rape you."<<. But, for this we would have to respect the primary sources enough to priorize them over secondary source articles from newspapers deemed "credible" by Wikipedia's committees. And whether we, collectively, are able to do that is anyone's guess. Wefa (talk) 03:07, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support keeping it as it is I haven't read all of the comments on this page but I have read a few. Some people (at least one person) has said that categorising people into the table as it is given is problematic because, although it may accurately portray what editors were arguing for at the time when they were discussing issues in the lede, the actual wording of the lede has changed considerably multiple times and so people's positions on the current lede may differ drastically compared to what is implied in the table. I won't talk for anybody else but this is certainly true for me. I vaguely remember various problems with the lede including excessive detail and (perhaps unintentionally) biased wording. However, the reason that I argued for "Make It Neutral" in the past is because the wording was something akin to "and subsequent comments in which Benjamin speculated as to whether or not he would rape Phillips" (although now that I write this it seems a little more extreme than I remember it being - nonetheless, it was a wording that concealed the fact that the comment was a joke). The current lede may not be perfect but, with regards to this comment in particular, all of my issues have been addressed and far from "giving up" on making change, I simply find the current wording to be unobjectionable. Given that I was placed on this list and invited to add a comment, I thought this would be relevant context as to the current consensus (or lack thereof, I'm not sure) as to whether this comment should be changed or not. Alduin2000 (talk) 20:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Edited to make my position on the matter clear (previously this was placed as a comment) Alduin2000 (talk) 13:41, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• I apologize for misrepresenting your position. You have a good point. I tried to put a ton of effort into building a rock-solid case that something is wrong here, and we need more eyes on it to solve the problem. But even with everything I tried to do, I still wasn't able to account for the shifting contexts that your guys' discussions took place in. I agree with the change someone made to the table header to try and resolve this. Amaroq64 (talk) 09:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: I do not think this whole matter can be solved, unfortunately. If you work through Wikipedia's body of rules, it's self-image on topics of contemporary history and politics is "the considered sum of what is written in the papers". This is not explicitly written down anywhere, but this is what effectively results from its sourcing rule system on controversial topics with at least methodologically honest editors. Now, we could do an extensive debate of what the pros and cons of this mechanism are, but here and now we wont be able to change that. And one unfortunate consequence of this is that Wikipedia is necessarily as broken as the press system in general is. The case of Carl Benjamin is a special example of this. Benjamin has been systematically smeared and defamed by practically all left wing British mainstream papers. The Guardian ran a "ceterum censeo" style campaign against him, where in every single article about him or even mentioning him there was a remark characterizing him as "the man who wrote about raping Jess Philips" in some way. And once he joined the Brexit bandwaggon and was recruited by the minority UK independence party, the British papers loyal to the Tories became, at best, indifferent on the matter.
  As the above debate amply shows, this smearing is a reality you can not undo under Wikipedia's rules. For one, it contaminates practically all allowed sources (as Wikipedia has excluded most of the conservative sources from consideration), and it also forms the reality for many of its editors. If your mental image of reality is formed by The Guardian and The Observer, then Carl Benjamin is the person who writes (presumably approvingly) about raping Jess Phillips, just like Milo Yiannopoulos is said to have been banned by Twitter because he harassed Leslie Jones. Those of us who "were there" back then, saw the referred primary sources as they were published and the ensuing debate first hand and know a decidedly different story on those cases can not do anything to change that. The current debate climate is not conductive for a solution. For the time being we have to live with Wikipedia's erosion of NPOV, and see it slowly become Leftopedia on political matters. And that includes the constant low key disparaging of conservatives in their respective BLPs. Wefa (talk) 15:10, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the article adheres to Wikipedia's policies. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 03:26, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't. Even though Wikipedia neutrality must still pick a position according to what the sources say, that has not been done here. You can see the talk section I created on the article itself where I show that a number of reputable sources use the "pressured into raping" language. It's not just slanted because the media is slanted. It's slanted beyond what the media was. Amaroq64 (talk) 00:55, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Benjamin is not a "conservative", not even by his own self-definition, and doesn't collectively speak for political conservatives either in the U.K. or the U.S. any more than any random internet meme celebrity who appears on the left-wing side can be said to speak for progressives. This is especially ludicrous given that Benjamin's electoral career has failed miserably in even attracting voters who aren't disposed to be left-wing. If anything, Benjamin's pro-far-right identity politics approach and collectivist attitude in line with the alt-right movement he's a key figure within make him a great anti-conservative speaker in the same philosophical sense as people in the broader left-wing (compare the similarly far right and anti-conservative orator Oswald Mosley to somebody like, say, the classically conservative wordsmith Edmund Burke). CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 04:40, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. Benjamin defines himself as a classical liberal. But in the context of a left-right spectrum he is certainly not on the left half of the spectrum. Furthermore, Benjamin is not alt-rigfht - he is quite critical of figures who are commonly identified as alt right, like Richard Spencer or white supremacy groups. Wikipedia defines alt-right as "loosely connected far-right, white nationalist movement". That does not characterize Benjamin at all, with the possible exception of his activity for UKIP - but then, many commentators shy away from classifying UKIP as far right, either.

On the internet, Benjamin comes from the skeptics and rationalists youtube crowd - folks who spend their time criticizing ideology and nonsensical belief systems. From this position he early specialized in debunking political nonsense produced by certain internet feminists and other leftwing ideologues. That in turn made him an enemy in their mind. The usual reaction on the left to fundamental criticism is to assume and proclaim the critic is evil, and the pattern on the Internet has been to associate everyone with the alt right who is on the net and criticizes the left in fundamentally hard hitting ways.

In sum, I consider Benjamin a moderate conservative - he shares their generally high national pride, a law and order view preference on domestic politics, an appreciation of free markets and a restrictive view on immigration, while he disagrees with many of them on God and the Church and, certainly, on internet politics. On civil rights matter Benjamin strongly supports equality of opportunity and rejects any efforts to advance equality of outcome. The alt right classification in the article, OTOH, is part of the ongoing effort to paint him into a far right corner. Wefa (talk) 18:06, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - I've looked at the article as it stands right now, and everything appears in order. What exactly is being proposed as a change? Specifically? I genuinely want to know. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 04:40, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I point to my comment above: we do not need to get into the detail of the exact quotes in the lede of the article, as its getting into excessive details that need the space of the body to really discuss property in an NPOV manner. Bilorv suggested (see above) "Benjamin's widely-condemned comments about rape in relation to Jess Phillips dominated his 2019 European Parliament candidacy" for the lede which is completely fair. --Masem (t) 06:02, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
    • "Rape in relation to"?? I see no reason to degrade our article so that it ends up being less informative to readers. "rape in relation to" is opaque -- certainly much more opaque than a version that tells us that the comments were actually about raping Phillips. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 06:45, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
      • The wording can be fixed, but as I describe above, in the lede getting any further into the details of what he said and what impact that had would require excessive weight in the lede as to maintain some neutrality and impartialness here. For anyone controversial as soon as you start finding yourself needing to pull quotes into the lede, you're probably going down a rabbit trial. Right now, considering 2 of 12 para (outside the lead) cover the situation around his comments, 1/3rd of the lede about it is inappropriate. --Masem (t) 22:42, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
      • I'm perfectly happy changing comments about rape in relation to Jess Phillips to comments about raping Jess Phillips, as I think Nomoskedasticity is suggesting. My previous choice of wording—on reflection—was an attempt to compromise with fans of Benjamin, but there shouldn't be a compromise on NPOV when none of the sources are in their favour. — Bilorv (talk) 07:43, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

""Benjamin's widely-condemned comments about rape in relation to Jess Phillips dominated his 2019 European Parliament candidacy" would be factually false and not appropriate. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 07:18, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

we seem to continue to technically agree while fundamentally differing on our point of view. Again, you are right. But Benjamin's original comment was not about rape, at all. It invoked the term rape - previously invoked by his opponent Jess Philips in the proposal he reacted to - to make a point about internet censorship. Unfortunately, though, there is no way toexplain that in 3 words, so the task to shorten the lede and make it more accurate or fair seems .... challenging. Wefa (talk) 18:18, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Here's the thing, and I'm giving this advice for free. "Neutral" doesn't necessarily mean fair. We want to be fair in balancing everything by weight. That more or less means how much space it deserves depends on how notable or significant that info is. That's part of neutrality, but the bigger part is to, as best as possible, keep your own views to yourself, try to put all personal biases aside, and write like an uninvolved person who is completely detached from the situation. That's always challenging, but neutrality is something you can't try to force or else it will surely be biased. You just have to summarize the info that you're given.

Now the more space we give it; the more prominent it becomes in the article. Suddenly the whole article is about this and little of anything else. If a person's bias is toward minimizing the situation, then adding more is the opposite of achieving the "fairness" they seek. If your bias is toward maximizing the situation, then more should be exactly what you want. To remain neutral, we should be aiming for neither, but for a simple summary of the facts. Now everybody has biases one way or the other, and they affect our own perception of reality, so it is challenging but not impossible to mostly avoid in writing.

To overcome it, imagine that this only deserved a single, short sentence in the lede, because perhaps he was notable for so many other "great" things. (I said, just imagine, and "great" in quotation marks was being sarcastic, in case it wasn't obvious.) How would you summarize this info into one, short sentence? That's how you begin. Now as it turns out this apparently does deserve an entire paragraph. This short sentence becomes your introduction sentence, or opening sentence for that paragraph. The following sentences are just elaborating on what the first sentence said, and breaks it into its different aspects. In this case, it's simply what happened, what was said, and what the response was. It seems we have that all fairly well covered in the lede as it exists right now. The lede is not a good place for context. The lede is where you first start to build context that will make the info in the body more interesting and easier to understand. That's simply because the brain absorbs info in a non-linear fashion. Whether it's an article like Potential energy or Elton John, it's always a bad idea to get too detailed in the lede. All you need for building context for the body is the gist of it. I hope that helps. Zaereth (talk) 19:21, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Pretty much Zaereth's first point here: to keep the lede to the appropriate size and weight relative to the current coverage in the body related to the rape comments, there's no way we can keep that tight without ending making it look like a bad situation for Benjamin in the election, which was factually true. That doesn't mean WP itself is casting doubt in Wikivoice to Benjamin directly, just that we are saying his campaign was marred by it. The resolution of the situation then can be explained in depth with quotes and more details in the body. --Masem (t) 22:47, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. But I don't think some of those arguing for more detail realize it doesn't help make him look any better. It just makes this stand out like Denali. (Although part of me has to wonder if he seriously intended on winning, or if this was more for publicity.) Zaereth (talk) 23:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Of course, an alternative is to have a very short lede (basically a dictionary definition) followed by a longer introduction section, which is basically an expansion of the lede. This is something I almost always do in articles I write, (for example, see alloy or basic fighter maneuvers), but that approach is better for technical and scientific articles and the like, but ill-suited to biographies. Either way,, you want the lede to get the point across in as few words as possible. Zaereth (talk) 22:26, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Just wanted to comment saying I agree with Masem's approach. The discussion in the lead only needs to mention that he made widely criticized comments to introduce the topic, which can covered in more detail in the body. I think Bilorv's suggested wording is probably fine, but it doesn't have to be that. If others feel like there needs to be a quote in the lead, then we should just pick one as an example, probably just stick with the "I wouldn't even rape you" one. We really shouldn't be trying to analyze the whole exchange or provide extensive background context in the lead. He made some controversial comments and they received a lot of coverage during his campaign. That's all that needs to be said about it in the lead. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 06:29, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Broadly agreed, but a pedantic point: he didn't make controversial comments. In fact the mainstream reception was uncontroversial and unanimous. He made universally condemned comments. — Bilorv (talk) 07:43, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Not that I disagree, but that's a conclusion on your part. His comments clearly caused a controversy (widespread public debate outside of media coverage, like we're having now), but we can't condemn them in wikivoice. We can possibly say such-and-such a source condemned them, but not us. To say they caused a controversy is neutral and factual, but the reader should make up their own minds on whether to condemn them. (Readers like to make up their own minds and not be told what they should think. The old writing adage goes, "Show, don't tell". As obvious as it is that it was intended as a joke, it's equally obvious that it was in horribly bad taste, and stating the obvious becomes condescending to the reader.) Zaereth (talk) 08:20, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, I do disagree. Back then, Benjamin was a moderately known Youtuber. His tweet was reported by his enemies, and usually in a distorted fashion, like "Benjamin tweets about raping Jess Phillips". Those who condemned him over that condemned not him but the caricature his enemies drew. Second, once you leave the realm of Wikipedia-approved leftwing publications you will find folks approving or understanding that comment. And third, you will find that the media echo in 2016 altogether was so very sparse that you can not call that "universally" at all. If anything, Benjamin was universally unknown. That only changed when he became a UKIP candidate. Wefa (talk) 20:04, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Too much detail for the lede. Like I said, by the current wording it's obvious to anyone with half a wit that it was intended as a joke. It's also more than obvious that it was an extremely bad, horribly bad joke, and he got backlash for it. No surprise to anyone. If you want fairness you really need to look at it in terms of weight. Do you want this to be a mountain in the middle of molehills, or should we give it the prominence (how much a mountain stands out against its background) it deserves; no more and no less? This is not the only thing he is notable for, and we need to put his entire life and career into proportion. Now if you want to expand the entire article for the sole purposes of making this bigger, yet still balanced, then you're more than welcome, but I wouldn't expect that to increase it's prominence in the lede. If anything it will likely decrease it or stay the same. Zaereth (talk) 00:25, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• It doesn't belong in the lede. Maineartists (talk) 00:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  I would agree if it didn't take up a fairly large portion of the body, but as it stands three or four sentences in the lede seems appropriate. The lede is supposed to be a summary of the body (a summary of a summary), and should really be just like a miniature model of the body, with everything sized in direct proportion. It's prominence in the body is an entirely different matter that's open to plenty of discussion, preferably at the talk page. And that's a problem that can be remedied by simply expanding on the rest of his life and career (if possible). Zaereth (talk) 00:41, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• Keep on the lead as is MOS:LEAD: The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. An entire section is devoted to this aspect of his public life, so it should be on the lead. No editorializing to paint it as less than it was should be introduced. It's not our job to interpret his comments and then present them to the readers in a context that the majority of us finds appropriate. The readers can judge for themselves. We are only responsible to provide them with an accurate account of the events.--Maleschreiber (talk) 02:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Jussie Smollett

Half the lead is about his allegedly false assault report. Anyone care to take a trimmer to it? Gleeanon409 (talk) 04:16, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Harmeet Dhillon

Harmeet Dhillon has been in the news recently for suing the state of California on at least two occasions to challenge the Shelter in Place Order. In one particularly noteworthy court filing, quoted in the Chronicle, Dhillon argues that the list of essential businesses "prohibits all religious leaders from conducting in-person and out-of-home religious services, regardless of the measures taken to reduce or eliminate the risk of the virus spreading. Meanwhile, the list deems the continuity of services provided by coffee baristas, burger flippers, and laundromat technicians to be so necessary for society that these activities are permitted to continue under the State Order." This vivid statement expresses her views so clearly that I was going to include it in her article. But I see that WP:BLPPRIMARY explictly says "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." Does that still apply if the subject of the article is a legal professional whose job is to produce court filings? I understand the urge to prevent anything that smacks of doxing or original research, but these are her own words, voluntarily placed in a public document. Certainly it's more authoritative to cite the filing rather than a news article that includes the same quote, right? Thanks. Wnissen (talk) 14:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Wnissen. Actually, the opposite is true. Anyone can say anything they want in a court filing. But reliable newspapers have professional editors and reporters whose job it is to separate the wheat from the chaff and decide what should reported to the public and what shouldn't. It is not the role of amateur volunteer Wikipedia editors to go through court filings to make those decisions. Instead, we summarize what published reliable sources say rather than doing that original research ourselves. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 16:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Derek Sloan

Note: Posted by User:BridgitCHennessey. I tidied the article up where refs were duplicated. I have also made a couple of edits to remove the word "notoriety" in the first para, and add "allegedly" about his tweets being racist, as neither were valid in Wikipedia's voice (refs 3 and 4 in this posting). The "racism" issue also looks a bit undue in the lead. I haven't looked at the details in the main body. Black Kite (talk) 18:38, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello. I am a member of the conservative party of Canada, and am trying to do research on the candidates for the leader. Wikipedia has always been a place for me to start because the references usually make sense, but the ones on this page don’t. I am finding them contradictory, false and even libellous. The edits certainly aren’t verified well, and clearly aren’t being made by neutral parties (NPOV), as they are posting references that are anywhere from misleading to slanderous and libelous (V, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Libel). The history of changes here seems to show that this has been going on for quite some time. This falls under the Biographies of living persons policy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons), and should come down immediately. I am relieved to see that the page has been locked to more editing, but disappointed that the libelous references are still there.

Can an editor please unlock them to remove the offending remarks and then lock to editing again? As per the biographies of living persons policy, “We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source. Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.[1] Users who persistently or egregiously violate this policy may be blocked from editing. Biographies of living persons ("BLPs") must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives; the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment. This policy applies to any living person mentioned in a BLP, whether or not that person is the subject of the article, and to material about living persons in other articles and on other pages, including talk pages.[b] The burden of evidence rests with the editor who adds or restores the material.”

Indeed, this page seems to fall under the category of attack pages. “Pages that are unsourced and negative in tone, especially when they appear to have been created primarily to disparage the subject, should be deleted at once if there is no policy-compliant version to revert to; see #Summary deletion, creation prevention, and courtesy blanking. Non-administrators should tag them with {{db-attack}}. Creation of such pages, especially when repeated or in bad faith, is grounds for immediate blocking.”

Further to that, it seems that editors are using this page to continue a dispute. “Wikipedia articles concerning living persons may include material—where relevant, properly weighted, and reliably sourced—about controversies or disputes in which the article subject has been involved. Wikipedia is not a forum provided for parties to off-wiki disputes to continue their hostilities. Experience has shown that misusing Wikipedia to perpetuate legal, political, social, literary, scholarly, or other disputes is harmful to the subjects of biographical articles, to other parties in the dispute, and to Wikipedia itself. Therefore, an editor who is involved in a significant controversy or dispute with another individual—whether on- or off-wiki—or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person, given the potential conflict of interest. More generally, editors who have a strongly negative or positive view of the subject of a biographical article should be especially careful to edit that article neutrally, if they choose to edit it at all.[e]”

Each point is below.

Reference 3: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2020/01/29/being-gay-is-not-a-choice-but-who-cares-if-it-is.html: This tag makes no sense because it says Sloan is noted for anti-LGBTQ views, but the referenced article states: Sloan who said “no” being gay is not a choice, in his opinion. … “But this is a complicated issue and I am not a scientist,” The article is opinion piece, highly slanted by author and does not show anti-LGBTQ views of Sloan, just the journalist’s view that Sloan has anti-LGBTQ views. This tag labels Sloan with contentious labels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:LABEL)

Reference 4: https://www.intelligencer.ca/news/local-news/hastings-county-calls-for-mp-sloans-removal-after-racist-tweet-about-dr-tam I disagree with this tag saying that Sloan is racist because the article talks about municipal leaders asking for his removal from Conservative caucus for questions about Dr Theresa Tam’s links to the Chinese government, and supported by tweets sent to Sloan’s account. There is nothing about Dr Tam’s gender or race here. It also is libellous (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Libel)

Reference 12: https://www.quintenews.com/2018/11/14/4-candidates-in-the-conservative-race-for-hla/ This tag is false. The tag said Sloan had recently moved to his riding, but linked article says nothing about his residency, only announcing his nomination and that of 3 other candidates for the right to run for the Conservative party in this riding and is poorly sourced.

Reference 16: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/cause-of-sexual-orientation-is-scientifically-unclear-tory-leadership-hopeful-says-1.4789014 This tag is false, misleading and libellous (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Libel). The tag states Sloan argued that the science of wether sexual orientation is a choice is unclear, but article talks about the cause of sexual orientation is unclear, and article specifically states he disagrees with homosexuality was a choice. The article also states Sloan’s comments were criticized by his election campaign manager, Eric Lorenzen, criticized his comments, but Lorezen tweeted about homosexuality being a choice, not referencing or tagging Sloan in the tweet at all https://twitter.com/EDLorenzen/status/1221999833373978624?s=20

Reference 17: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/derek-sloan-conservative-leadership-1.5436227 This tag is simply false. It says Sloan has attracted controversy about policy positions, but referenced article doesn’t mention any policy, actually mentions he won’t talk about policy until announced as a candidate

Refence 18: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/exclusive-conservative-leadership-contender-would-let-canadian-politicians-debate-abortion This tag is misleading and false. The tag says Sloan would allow private member’s bills aimed at over-turning same sex marriage, but article states he is not intending to re-open marriage debate, stating only the Conservative party has been neutral since 2016, and only would allow MPs to bring forward private members bills of concern to them including same sex marriage. It is clearly libellous and meant to shed Sloan in a negative light. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Libel)

Reference 20: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/tory-leadership-hopeful-sloan-blasts-trudeau-conversion-therapy-ban-as-madness  

This tag is outright slanderous and libel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Libel) It states that Sloan argued that parents should be able to make children identify with the body they are born with, but article states he doesn’t support bill because would jail parents for helping minors with unwanted gender confusion or same sex attraction, and later in article goes on to state that he believes every responsible MP should support measures to prevent coercive counselling that harms patients.

Reference 21: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2020/01/29/being-gay-is-not-a-choice-but-who-cares-if-it-is.html This article has already been used as a reference in this wiki doc, and does not support Sloan being anti-LGBTGQ, and is an editorial that only references Sloan talking about sexual orientation not being a choice, but that there is a complicated scientific component too it

Reference 22 and 23: https://inquinte.ca/story/local-mp-says-liberals-too-slow-in-responding-to-rail-blockades/direct?fbclid=IwAR3ma0s2c_VuZBs2wmcDI_EMnc3iU-G5cs1S0qx3hZULhHpaORzzBj66rrE and https://twitter.com/DerekSloanCPC/status/1228748095401451520 This tag is misleading and false. The tag states Sloan was criticized for not taking time away from his leadership campaign to help end the blockade, but the article states he thought Liberals were too slow in responding to blockades and the article goes on to state businesses in the area are calling on the federal government to take steps to restore rail service. There is nothing about people complaining about Sloan working on his campaign instead of focusing on the blockade.

As you can see, this document is full of false, misleading and even libellous information. It fails in many instances to the biographies of living persons policy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons) The majority of the points are not neutral (NPOV), verifiability (V) is weak at best and based on the edit history is ongoing and meant to cast Sloan in a negative light, clearly meant to hurt his chances in his leadership race. It needs to come down and needs to be locked to future edits.

I've gone through it a bit, and removed some statements (lifesitenews.com had already been removed) and reworded other statements to fit the cites a bit better, but it needs more eyes/trimming. I don't have access to the Globe and Mail, so I couldn't check anything referenced to that properly.Curdle (talk) 19:02, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Jay A Levy

Hi, it should be added that Jay A Levy is the twin brother of Stuart Levy as referenced in this obituary: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/stuart-levy-microbiologist-who-sounded-alarm-on-antibiotic-resistance-dies-at-80/2019/09/19/4011ea96-dae9-11e9-a688-303693fb4b0b_story.html. Someone should also link his page to Stuart B Levy's page on wikipedia. Thanks!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wallac7 (talk • contribs) 03:16, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Gulab Singh

Hello, in this article, I have removed some content (assets, liability etc.). What do you think of the "Criminal cases" section? Regards. --Titodutta (talk) 11:58, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Easily sourceable (i.e. [5]). However I don't think it needs a table to tell us that he was convicted nine times in one year of vandalism of a property, a sentence would do it. Black Kite (talk) 17:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Konstandinos Katsifas

On Northern Epirus there's an incidents' section about interethnic tensions which involve members of the Albanian and Greek communities. One of these events is the killing in 2018 of a Greek person, Konstandinos Katsifas by the Albanian Special Police Forces. Among other issues that surround the story is that of his political affiliation which may be related to the events. News reports and agencies seem to consider it important to mention his extreme right-wing affiliations in relation to the events and the aftermath:

• Kathimerini, a Greek newspaper: Photographs from social media show him dressed in military-style clothes, with a Greek flag patch on his arm. Reports have also suggested that he fostered extreme nationalist sympathies.
• Fox News: Members of Greece's extreme right political party Golden Dawn protested after Kacifa's death outside the Albanian Embassy, closing a major road in Athens. Albanian media reported that Kacifa was a member too.
• B92, Serbian agency: Due to the killing of the Greek man, members of the right-wing Golden Dawn party were protesting in front of the Albanian embassy in Athens, reports AP - a protest which shut down the street. The US agency also quoted Albanian media, who are saying that Katsifas was "a member of Golden Dawn."
• Balkan Insight, interregional agency: Following the killing, Greek nationalists organized protests and several hate incidents were registered against Albanian property in Greece.
• Forum für Mittelost- und Südosteuropa, interregional journalist/political comment platform with links to Andrássy University Budapest and other pro-EU institutions: He was considered as a radical Greek extremist, who has already planned the attack against the police before October 28. Moreover, he planned to message both Tsipras and Rama about the resistance of Greeks in the south of Albania. Kacifa's Facebook profile is full of threatening messages against the Albanians.

I added to the article the following: Kacifa had extreme right-wing affiliations. Albanian media have reported that he was a member of neo-nazi/neo-fascist Golden Dawn. but it was removed and I was accused of BLP violations by @Khirurg: who reverted me. Is it a BLP issue to mention issues like political affiliation when they are reported by reliable agencies in the context of the killing and inter-ethnic tensions in the region? I'm asking the community because I am perplexed as to why - according to some editors - something that is mentioned by many news agencies which reported the events, on wikipedia can't be mentioned even with a careful attribution like Albanian media report. Thank you and I will respect whatever decision the community makes.--Maleschreiber (talk) 01:28, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I definitely agree with the previous comment. If news agencies around the world report this and consider it relevant, Wikipedia shouldn't censor information that is carefully attributed like user Maleschreiber described. N.Hoxha (talk) 02:21, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

This is a very serious BLP situation. Golden Dawn is a neo-Nazi organization, so this is a very serious accusation. The Fox News report doesn't say which Albanian media made the claim that he was GD. As far as I know, it's mostly Albanian tabloids that have made the claim. Please also note, Albania is not a fully democratic country with a free press, being ranked as low as 79th on the Democracy Index and classified as a "hybrid regime", and ranked 82nd by Reporters Without Borders [6]. The reports have not been carried by any other western source besides fox news. So what we have is a situation where unnamed media (likely tabloids) from a country with questionable press freedom are used to make an extremely serious BLP claim. I also find it highly hypocritical of users that have a history of insulting Serbian sources to use B92 (a Serbian source) when it suits them. Maleschreiber, I take it from now on you consider B92 reliable and suitable for use throughout wikipedia? Khirurg (talk) 03:02, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

How can someone "insult" a source? I mention B92 in order to highlight that reports around the world consider it important to note that Albanian media consider him a member of Golden Dawn. Khirurg judging them as "tabloids" or questioning their reliability is editorializing by a wikipedia editor. Wikipedia only puts forward what is considered important by media reports. If the position of the Albanian media is considered important enough to be mentioned - as should be, as this happened in Albania, then wikipedia should mention and carefully attribute it. Note how Khirurg at first accused me of a BLP violation and now that no BLP violation can be put forward he's trying to shift the discussion towards WP:RS. If that is the case, then we can close this one, but RS is also irrelevant here because there is no fact that is being put forward other than: In Albanian media it has been reported that he was a member of Golden Dawn.

As a side note: this is not a person who was vilified in Albania and considered a hero in Greece. In Greece too, the only party that tried to pass a motion in the Greek parliament in order to "honour his memory" was the Nazi party Golden Dawn and it was rejected by all other parties [7]. So, note that only a very specific part of Greek society chose to identify with this person for obvious political reasons. I'm mentioning this because Khirurg is trying to put forward another narrative that frames this dispute as one in which there are two completely opposed views (Albanian vs. Greek), but very few people in Greece supported a narrative which didn't frame Kacifas in the particular way the sources describe.--Maleschreiber (talk) 03:41, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Judging the reliability of sources is exactly what we need to do in Wikipedia. Not only of the sources themselves, but also of the reliability of the particular info they are providing. Some media sources are tabloid, and that is fairly easy to spot. Others may be reliable, but at the bottom of the barrel compared to better sources. But editorial judgment is required on some level to separate the wheat from the chaff. And I'd be careful about asserting any media accusations as being true, even here on BLPN, without some good sourcing to back it up. BLP rules apply to talk pages as well. Zaereth (talk) 03:55, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

(ec) Maleschreiber, first, please note I did say it is a BLP violation, and a major one. Didn't I say This is a very serious BLP situation? Do I have to quote myself now? And questioning the reliability of sources is not "editorializing". Am I not allowed to criticize sources now? What kind of logic is this? And what's this nonsense about "Trying to shift from BLP to RS? WP:RS is inextricably linked to BLP. You can't make any edits to BLP articles without reliable sources. And as far as I see, no RS have made the claim he was a GD member. The rest about "being considered a hero in Greece" is the old "guilt-by-association" trick. The fact that one particular organization honored him does not mean he was a member. This is simply nonsense. And even a cursory review of the Greek press shows a lot of sympathy for Katsifas, with only the far left describing in the way Maleschreiber is claiming. Khirurg (talk) 04:07, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not asserting or not asserting any media accusations. Media accusations though should be mentioned if the particular events are being discussed in the media. Wikipedia doesn't take sides when mentioning what the media discuss in a neutral way. What has also been completely removed from the article is the fact that Greek, Albanian, regional media have mentioned Kacifas in the context of such politics. I used Kathimerini, a Greek newspaper as a source, but Khirurg removed that as "BLP" violation too. Some editors want nothing to be mentioned at all even though all media outlets discuss the events in that exact framework.

• Photographs from social media show him dressed in military-style clothes, with a Greek flag patch on his arm. Reports have also suggested that he fostered extreme nationalist sympathies., Kathimerini
• The protest came after the death of Kostandinos Kacifa, the Greek extremist who terrorized a village, attacked the Albanian police and died during the fire exchange with the special forces., Top Channel, the biggest media outlet in Albania.
• Wikipedia doesn't have to side with Albania's biggest channel or a respectable Greek news agency, but it has to at least mention what they have to say. The first narrative Khirurg put forward is that any mention of Kacifas and his politics is a BLP violation by definition. I was referring to that when I said that now there's a shift from BLP to RS. A strictly RS discussion isn't a BLP topic, because there is no BLP claim here other than: 1)Albanian media reported him in X manner. 2)A mention about general links to extreme right-wing politics which @N.Hoxha: rephrased but for some editors using a source that says Reports have also suggested that he fostered extreme nationalist sympathies. in order to write Reports have linked Kacifas to extreme right-wing politics. is a BLP violation. How can that be a BLP violation by any standard?--Maleschreiber (talk) 04:23, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

If you don't think accusing someone of being a member of a neo-Nazi organization is not a BLP issue, I think this discussion is over. By the way, you didn't answer my question regarding B92. Do you consider it RS going forward? Thanks in advance. Khirurg (talk) 04:36, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Greek outlets like Kathimerini have noted the reports of his (purported) extreme nationalist sympathies. Meanwhile, the furor over this is a bit surprising to me, as it is quite out of line with our coverage of other such individuals with purported nationalist/far-right/etc sympathies. Example, from Unite the Right rally: James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old from Ohio who reportedly had expressed sympathy for Nazi Germany during his time as a student at Cooper High School in Union, Kentucky, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.. I don't think we should say in wikivoice that he was a far-right individual or whatever, but rather that he was reported (by X-sources if necessary) as such -- just like we did with Fields Jr. (maybe don't say "neo-Nazi" for Golden Dawn, they dispute this, whatever, far-right/extreme nationalist gets the gist across anyway). A major difference between Fields Jr. and Katsifas though: Katsifas has been dead for six months.--Calthinus (talk) 04:41, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that is a good point which I honestly think that N.Hoxha framed rather well. Going from Reports have also suggested that he fostered extreme nationalist sympathies. to Reports have linked Kacifas to extreme right-wing politics. is both neutral and avoids wikivoice.--Maleschreiber (talk) 04:49, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I think there's an implication in the latter statement that it is some form of organised "politics"; membership of a far-right organisation or similar. I don't see that implication present in the former statement. - Ryk72 ^talk 05:02, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I fully agree @Ryk72:. Here, on top of edit-warring BLP violations, we also have language problems. I don't think editing can get worse than that. Dr. K. 12:36, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• A major difference between Fields Jr. and Katsifas though: Katsifas has been dead for six months. is an inept statement. BLP applies to recently deceased people as well. They have family, kids, wives etc. Why the rush to bury them again, this time ideologically by edit-warring people with substandard command of the English language? Dr. K. 12:47, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Dr.K. um, what the actual heck, English is my native language. I'm also not sure why that was necessary, or how "inept" describes the statement. Does Fields Jr. not have relatives?--Calthinus (talk) 15:02, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

It is inept because you should have known that BLP applies not only to the dead but also to survivors. As far as Fields jr., WP:OTHERCRAP covers this well. Dr. K. 16:04, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, no, I think the well established consensus versionss high traffic pages on such contentious topics as American politics such as Unite the Right rally are instead exemplars (in this case I was involved in the page, though not that sentence) of how BLP is resolved and it is not in favor of the view that only you and Khirurg here have advocated (yes, no one else has supported you that this is a BLP violation). When RS sources say there are reports he had x-views, you report it. This is true for alleged white supremacists in the US who are charged with crimes, and it is true for alleged Greek supremacists who got into a shootout with Albanian police and died. By the way he was already buried nearly eighteen months ago [8] (with people taking selfies on his grave and declaring him a martyr for the national cause, in contravention with his own family's wishes... and, apparently, yelling blood is calling, set Albanians on fire according to French press... [9]). --Calthinus (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

But forgive me I did make a mistake. I said the difference was Katsifas was dead six months. Forgive me, that should be eighteen months. Sometimes I forget that it is 2020. I hope it's not because I am inept (do desist from that) :). --Calthinus (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• A major difference between Fields Jr. and Katsifas though: Katsifas has been dead for six months. is an inept statement. BLP applies to recently deceased people as well. They have family, kids, wives etc. Why the rush to bury them again, this time ideologically? Dr. K. 12:47, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• No reverts by me, 3 or 4 by you Dr.K. The fact that we're discussing how we can integrate those aspects of the events now instead of dismissing them, highlights that this was never a BLP violation in the first place. It has been established that media discuss about the protagonist of these events in a particular way. That should be reflected as previously in the article (Albanian media) with the only rephrasing being done to Kathimerini. I'm ok with N.Hoxha's rephrasing, I don't think it points to organized party politics in wikivoice, but that can be reworked too.
• Katsifas died in 2018 and it seems that his family hasn't had any problem getting into politics after that as his sister was even a candidate [10] for the Greek parliament a year later, while his mother seems to have made some very political comments [11].
• Also, BLP applies to the police officers who witnessed him shooting with an AK-47, so I wouldn't make any unfounded accusations against them.--Maleschreiber (talk) 13:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• Hold your horses. This is too much to reply to. I didn't mention you specifically edit-warring that piece. But you are defending Hoxha's edit which does not accurately describe what the source says, as others have told you, and it is a BLP violation. The rest of the examples you give about his family are simply a red herring fallacy. What does the subsequent life of his family members have to do with the inaccurate BLP violations you are supporting so vehemently? Nothing. Zilch. Your logic demonstrates your POV quite well. The point of the policemen who killed him is useless. I have done nothing to violate their BLP. As far as my reverts, I made copyedits that you want to count as reverts in your push to attack me. Dr. K. 13:19, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• An edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions—whether in whole or in part—counts as a revert. so you have 3-4 very proper reverts, no small "copy-edits". Also, don't continue the whole BLP violation accusation. This discussion has moved way past that. Now, that we've established that in some form his politics should be discussed, I want to continue the discussion with the second part about Albanian media reports. --Maleschreiber (talk) 13:27, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• Once more: Copyediting bad English, or removing text that is a BLP violation because your language skills or POV did not allow you to transcribe accurately from the source, thus becoming an unsourced invention of yours, is not edit-warring and it very much is a BLP violation. I hope this helps. Dr. K. 13:42, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Maleschreiber, we haven't "established" anything. The politics thing is basically an attempt to justify the shooting ("he was an extremist and thus deserved to die"). In any case, I note the official report from the Albanian police came out a few months ago, and ruled his death...a suicide. Go figure. Khirurg (talk) 15:26, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Official report from the Albanian police said what? Source, please? --Calthinus (talk) 15:34, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

[12]. Khirurg (talk) 03:00, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@Dr.K.: WP:BDP says "The only exception would be for people who have recently died, in which case the policy can extend for an indeterminate period beyond the date of death—six months, one year, two years at the outside." The above discussion is a bit confusing, but I gather the death was on 28 October 2018. This means it's now hit the 18 month mark. So it's getting close to the "two years at the outside" mark, and so editors should start moving on from this being something best dealt with via the BLP framework. This doesn't mean we suddenly allow any unsourced allegation against him to be included, we still have to consider our other policies. But BLP is becoming less and less relevant for any issues only concerning him. While his family and friends have our sympathies, ultimately even someone dead for 80 years may have living direct family. BLP may still come into play. For example if mention something someone living or likely living said or did. And be it a family member, a friend, a police officer, a witness, whatever. But not in relation to something that is only directly about what the subject said or did, e.g. his associations or groups he was a member of. And remember also that BLP applies on talk pages. Nil Einne (talk) 06:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. If this wasn't clear, I do see this more as a POV dispute, as eighteen months dead is not typical BLP territory. --Calthinus (talk) 17:42, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Nil, the argument is not how many years he's been dead. The argument is that in this case the sources proposed are weak and the phrasing is not parsed properly from the source by editors whose English-language skills are not up to BLP-strength criteria. But BLP is not the major player in this. Rather the information added is based on weak sources, vague allegations and improperly parsed/synthesised material, a fact which makes it an inaccurate POV piece and, by extension, a BLP violation even after 18 months have passed. By the way, no pings please. Dr. K. 18:20, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

But BLP is not the major player in this was all that needed to be said. NPOV is a separate thing. --Calthinus (talk) 19:12, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Duh, yes it is. But here we have the Balkans with language-challenged editors rapid-fire edit-warring their POV in a fog of POV/BLP violations. Editing cannot become more toxic or cruder than that. Dr. K. 20:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

That's all very well but I already acknowledged there are issues besides BLP that need to be considered. In the end, this is the BLP notice board. And you specifically said "is an inept statement. BLP applies to recently deceased people as well." which is correct, but in this case, the subject is close to reaching the 2 years at the outside where BDP no longer applies. Ultimately you are going to have to move on from discussing this in BLP terms since 6 months from now, unless what you are discussing directly related to some other living individual, people are rightly going to ask WTF is this on the BLP noticeboard? Oor WTF do you bring up BLP, which is irrelevant to the issue? To be clear, 6 months from now, BLP will non player point blank for a number of issues. Let me repeat one more time that this doesn't mean it's open season for any manner of poorly source allegations in 6 months. We still need to follow our other policies and guidelines. But it does mean editors shouldn't be claiming there are BLP issues if by definition there aren't since the issue only relates to something about someone who is deceased for over 2 years. Nil Einne (talk) 13:18, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

References

It appears that this kind of edit takes hate speech to the next level: [[13]] clearly claiming that being born in a specific country is just enough to explain why 'hate incidents' happen.Alexikoua (talk) 14:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

To be honest, it looks like you misunderstood Fa alk's comment: Kacifa wasn't from modern Albania, why is that removed? Hate incidents against Albanian migrants happened because of this event and must be mentioned seems to imply that the hate incidents happened because of the shootout, not where he is from. --Calthinus (talk) 17:42, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• Now that it has been made clear that BLP cannot be treated as the main and only point of a discussion that is barely within the scope of BLP, I'll refrain from further comments and continue any discussion to the talkpage.--Maleschreiber (talk) 08:53, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Edward Kosner

There is disagreement whether to note Edward Kosner's religion (Judaism) in his article. It was added in August 2019 and removed in December 2019 by Coffee following an email request by Kosner at WP:OTRS. Kosner wrote about this experience in Commentary (magazine). There is a lot more background on both why it should and shouldn't be included which can be found on the talk page. At the moment no consensus about how to apply our BLP policy can be found at that talk page and at least a couple of us felt that this noticeboard might help us achieve consensus. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:51, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• As I have stated at that talkpage, it is my opinion and experience, that ethnicity and religion are almost always noteworthy, both because they are usually mentioned in almost all in-depth coverage of people and because they are indeed important aspects of the lives of the subjects of the biographies themselves in their own eyes (and these two reasons are obviously logically connected). The same is true in this case: it is well-sourced that Edward Kosner is Jewish and that being Jewish is something that is important to him. Ergo, we should have it. Debresser (talk) 21:09, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

On a sidenote, which I nevertheless feel that needs to be added, I would like to say that the OTRS ticket and the magazine article are IMHO not worthy of consideration, as Wikipedia operates based on its own, community established, principles.

Another sidenote, which I am even more reluctant to add, but feel that must be taken into consideration, is that the removing editor, Coffee, has not so long ago been reported at WP:AN for mass removal of Jewish categories. Debresser (talk) 21:15, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I also support inclusion in this case but think your link to the AN thread is not helpful; we're here to discuss content not conduct by particular editors. The issue there was the mass removal of such information not this removal (or any other individual removal). In fact a proposal to revert his changes did not have consensus. The close even noted the limited scope of AN in this matter. So AN has not weighed in on whether Kosner's page should or shouldn't have this article and it would be beyond the scope of that forum to do so in anycase. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

While a common underhanded tactic used in political campaigns, poisoning the well does not strengthen your argument here. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 03:31, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• The evidence here is clear: Kosner was raised Jewish, but he does not wish to be publicly known as such. He finds the descriptor of "Jewish" to be regarding his religious background. So, our standard consensus that we not include such information unless the subject wishes to self-identify, in my view applies. It is verifiable that he is a non-observant Jew, but WP:ONUS specifically notates that not all verifiable information need be included in an article. On a BLP, I would think ONUS should apply more often than not. The fact that this discussion solely began because Kosner wrote an op-ed about how much he disagreed with the description's initial inclusion, brings forward ethical implications of our potential actions that I feel are being under-considered currently. (It wasn't a commentary in Commentary about how much he wants the world to know he's Jewish, it was quite the opposite.) While I understand the side of discussion that 'because we're an encyclopedia we should try to report as much data as we can', in this case I (the article subject, Jimbo Wales and several others) fail to see how this is truly relevant to Wikipedia's coverage of Kosner's life (especially when the article subject has implored us, in the highest degree, not to include it). I plead with those who participate in this discussion to consider not just whether this would be the most accurate thing for us to do, but also whether we find ourselves to be acting ethically (a standard that is oftentimes lacking here) when dealing with the effects our actions can have on our fellow living human beings. With sincerity and hope, — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 03:31, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  Kosner has seen fit to write about his Jewish identity in both his autobiography and again, after this very incident, in Commentary. There are verifiable facts that are not in the article and should not be in the article respecting Kosner's privacy. However, we have both Kosner himself, as well as reliable sources (WSJ and New York Times) noting this fact. It is my contention that our BLP policy does not say that Kosner can decide which places he's OK having the information (again in an autobiography and an influential journal) and which places he's not OK; if he'd changed his mind since his autobiography we could also respect that but Commentary makes clear that he hasn't changed his mind about publicly discussing this topic. We should, instead, characterize the facts as he does that he is a proud if non-observant Jew. These six words, if placed in the body, are not undue and self-identifies him exactly the way he wishes to be. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:58, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  I do not believe an article subject writing an op-ed about how they were covered in Wikipedia, including a minor statement about how their actual religious beliefs are not important to their public life, rises to the threshold of notability so far that we have to include it (if anything, I continue to believe it furthers the notion that we should not). The most important facts of his life are already duly covered in his article. To me, this suggested addition simply does not appear to warrant inclusion. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 04:36, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  That his Jewish identity is mentioned in sources such as the New York Times, Wall St Journal, and his own autobiography, and that he's mentioned in three additional sources about prominent Jews in the media, all suggest to me that it is an important-enough detail to include in our biography of him, too. And those sources were all published long before the Commentary piece. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 05:36, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  We are WP:NOTNEWS. Everything that occurs in a minority of news coverage about a persons life (and it is the clear minority here, given how much of this man's life has been covered by reliable sources) does not need to be covered here. That is especially the case when it comes to religion. Kosner has stated clearly he considers the description to be of his religious affiliation, and so our clear consensus requiring self-identification of religion (regardless of how many sources state it) should stand (see WP:BLPCAT/WP:CAT/R). Kosner, in the Commentary piece, clearly and quite logically explains how his religious upbringing has not affected his notability. Using his statement that he does not wish his religion to be considered as part of his public life/notability, as some sort of loophole to that policy, is beyond the realms of how we should act here in my view... as is attempting to use him bringing up his upbringing as a form of self-identification of his current beliefs. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 06:02, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  Those six sources are not "a minority of news coverage about a persons life". Two of them are from newspapers. One is his autobiography. One is an academic paper. The other two are books. So WP:NOTNEWS is WP:NOTAPPLICABLEHERE.

  Kosner's own view of what does and does not affect his notability is irrelevant. First, the standard for inclusion is set out in WP:V and WP:NPOV (significance); it's not "notability" (WP:N, which has nothing to do with this content dispute). Second, the BLP subject's views are not what dictate inclusion in the BLP.

  My entire argument has, throughout, been that the weight of reliable sources suggest inclusion, because they include it. You have, so far, over four months, brought zero sources forward. You just keep hammering away at what Edward Kosner wants. Who cares what Edward Kosner wants? That's not how we right an encyclopedia.

  At long last, Coffee, do you have any sources to share that suggest that "Jewish" is not a significant part of his biography? What biographies of Kosner or other sources should we be looking at besides "the six" and Commentary (all of which include "Jewish")? Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 06:07, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  It's not just what Kosner wants that matters when it comes to discussing his religious beliefs, it matters what every article subject thinks when it comes to religion. What the BLP policy states on this is very clear: Categories regarding religious beliefs (or lack of such) or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief (or lack of such) or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources. ... These principles apply equally to lists, navigation templates, and {{Infobox}} statements (referring to living persons within any Wikipedia page) that are based on religious beliefs (or lack of such) or sexual orientation... — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 06:13, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  BLP policy is 100% completely satisfied here because the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief (or lack of such) when he wrote his autobiography years ago, and again this month when he wrote "a proud if non-observant Jew".

  Again: any sources that suggest "Jewish" is not important enough to include in this guy's biography? Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 06:19, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  Yeah, the one Kosner himself wrote here. If you also want me to list the myriad of sources from newspaper archives discussing this man's life that do not find his religion a relevant part of his notability, I will gladly do so. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 06:37, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  Wha--seriously, you want me to ask you one more time? OK, fine. Yes, please share whatever sources you think support excluding "Jewish" from Edward Kosner. Links would be great if possible. Don't need them all; the best two or three or however-many would be fine. (It might be better to post them at the article talk page in addition to or instead of here.) Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 06:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  I'm way more than happy to do so, as I've already discovered a few dozen within the past few minutes. I will be listing them here once I've decided I've found enough (and have clipped them all so everyone here can read them without a newspapers.com subscription), since you've made this the locus of your dispute. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 07:01, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  OK great. But, I have not made this the locus of my dispute. I don't know why there's a need to make things so personal. It's not "my" dispute. This is a content dispute involving a lot of editors. Don't post things here, or there, because of anything I have said or done, OK? Just... help resolve the content dispute. Post whatever sources are helpful, not to prove something to me, but to educate all the editors who are participating in this discussion, so that we can all be informed, and we can all arrive at consensus. OK? Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 07:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Here's just a quick selection of all of the newspapers covering this notable man (most are in-depth too), without once discussing his religious background (and this is not nearly all there is, I just require sleep and can't devote literally all of my time to this task): The Los Angeles Times - 2006 "A media memoir", The New York Times - 2003 "Editor of Daily News to Retire in March", The Herald-News (AP) - 1997 "Editor Kosner Leaving Esquire", Daily News - 1997 "Kosner Cashes In", Hartford Courant - 2002 "Pagnozzi", Rutland Daily Herald 2002 "Newpaper's undercover exploits raise ethics issues", The Los Angeles Times - 1979 "Editor of Newsweek Fired; Conflicts, Decisions Cited" part 1-part 2, Journal and Courier - 1975 "Time, Newsweek duplicate cover stories on rock star", The Brattleboro Reformer (AP) - 1999 "Mike Barnicle to Write for Sunday Daily News", The Honolulu Advertiser - 1979 "Editor of Newsweek Gets Walking Papers", Daily News - 1985 "Update", The Times Recorder (AP) - 1993, The Charlotte Observer - 1976 "Newsweek's New Editor After More Scoops", The San Francisco Examiner - 1980 "Time Keeps Marching On", The Ithaca Journal - 1975, Daily News - 2000 "Daily News circulation is on the rise", Austin American-Statesman - 1997 "Esquire's editor in chief leaving", Rutland Daily Herald - 1996 "Esquire Magazine Struggles to Find Role in the 1990s", Daily News - 1998 "Edward Kosner to edit Sunday News", The Los Angeles Times - 1998 "Magazines Feel Increased Pressure From Advertisers"...

And then there's these two, which are particularily interesting: 1. The Honolulu Advertiser - 1982 "Wrong color?" where Kosner is discussed regarding an issue of sending journalists to cover geographies that relate to ethinic backgrounds (specifically his choice to not send black reporters into Africa). While in it Kosner discusses sending Jewish reporters to Israel (without once mentioning he is Jewish), the reporter who wrote the article does not once bring up the fact that Kosner is Jewish (something one would think if it were a notable part of his life, would be worth noting in this case) 2. Daily News - 1989 "Publisher Kosner backs what Simon says" wherein Kosner specifically addresses the nature of anti-Semetic remarks made by drama critic John Simon, stating "There is no place for anti-Semitism, racism or anti-homosexual attitudes in New York magazine, and you won't find any there." Yet, the news article does not once mention that Kosner is himself Jewish. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:43, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Including every mention of him in the media doesn't persuade me. I looked at the first three and the two you highlighted and none are a biography of Kosner's life. Any that discuss his early life or personal life that don't mention he's Jewish? I wouldn't expect an announcement that he is leaving one employer to join another to include information about his identity, and I especially wouldn't expect the last two you highlighted to include that information. It's not like when an editor sends a reporter to Israel, they're going to mention that the editor is Jewish. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 13:19, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I did not "include every mention of him". But, that is besides the point. You asked for sources that covered Kosner without bringing up he is Jewish, there are a litany provided and even more I can provide. To now say none of those count because they aren't a "biography of his life" is a clear instance of moving the goalposts and simply not accurate. The very first LA times story you state you have read is titled "A media memoir", if a memoir isn't biographical I don't know what is. Regardless, all of those combined give a clear picture of his biographical tale and yet never mention his religious beliefs (or lack of such). In my view that is more than enough to show the weighting of sources do not cover Kosner in this way. So, I think at this point we will have to agree to disagree. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 16:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

No, I did not move goalposts or ask for sources that covered Kosner without bringing up he is Jewish. I know better than to ask for something like that. Of course there are tons of sources that mention Kosner without bringing up he is Jewish–he was an editor at several major publications for decades, obviously there is going to be a ton of newspaper articles mentioning him, particularly surrounding his high-profile departures from various employers. Those aren't biographies. (And weren't you just saying NOTNEWS, yet all your sources are contemporaneous news reports...) I kinda figured you were going to WP:REFBOMB, which is why I specifically wrote, Don't need them all; the best two or three or however-many would be fine.

What I asked for was: ... do you have any sources to share that suggest that "Jewish" is not a significant part of his biography? What biographies of Kosner or other sources should we be looking at besides "the six" and Commentary ... please share whatever sources you think support excluding "Jewish" from Edward Kosner ... Post whatever sources are helpful ... Thank you for doing that, but if these sources are what you consider "biographies of Kosner", then yeah, we'll have to agree to disagree. Note that the "A media memoir" article is not, despite its title, a memoir, nor a biography of Kosner. It's an interview with Kosner about Kosner writing his memoir, which does include some biographical details, but isn't what I'd call a biography (it doesn't mention his childhood or family at all, for example). Kosner's actual memoir – which I agree is a good source to look at – spends like 10 pages discussing his Jewish upbringing, and is one of "the six" sources supporting inclusion (now we're up to eight with recent publications). BTW, I noticed that none of the newspaper articles you posted were written after Kosner released his autobiography, which is another reason I don't find them as presuasive as more-recent sources ("the six eight"). Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Something doesn't have to mention one's children or family to be considered a biographical source. If the only sources we permitted for BLPs discussed those facets, we'd have a lot less BLPs on this site altogether. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 18:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

And it is worth mentioning I specifically asked you if "you also want me to list the myriad of sources from newspaper archives discussing this man's life that do not find his religion a relevant part of his notability, I will gladly do so". You directly and emphatically said "yes", without all these extra stipulations you're now adding. That is what I did, and this is where we are. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 19:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• Copied from Talk:Edward Kosner as relevant here as well (diff):

  I very much agree with Coffee and Jimbo Wales on this. WP:ONUS states — and I quote — "While information must be verifiable to be included in an article, all verifiable information need not be included in an article. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and that it should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is upon those seeking to include disputed content.". As Jimbo Wales has stated, I too have been concerned for some time with Sir Joseph's editing history on topics like this. This is further compounded by an apparent lack of understanding around the core site principle of consensus; Sir Joseph's insinuation that one (or two) editors is a strong consensus for inclusion of material that has already proven itself quite contentious is extremely troubling and disruptive, as his participation in a discussion that clearly falls under his topic ban: "Sir Joseph is topic-banned from the Holocaust and from anti-Semitism, both broadly construed."

  --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 03:50, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  TheSandDoctor, how is this relevant here as well? Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 04:21, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  I believe that is quite obvious. This discussion is about Edward Kosner's article including a descriptor of him being Jewish, the discussion where TheSandDoctor copied that from was the exact same topic. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:52, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  This quoted excerpt is about the conduct of an editor and doesn't seem relevant to the content dispute at issue. And what's a bit puzzling is that the editor at issue stopped participating in the discussion shortly after TSD posted the above quote on the article talk page, and yet a week later, TSD posts it again here. To what purpose? TSD already got what he wanted. This is unnecessary mudslinging. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 06:54, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• I don't know about the ethics of all this. I mean we're not talking about doxing or victim shaming here. If Kosner was notable for being Jewish, then the info should be in the article (regardless of OTRS, OpEd, or Jimmy's opinion). However, in this case I agree that his Jewishness (or degree thereof) is not tied to his notability, so it shouldn't be included. Ditch ∝ 03:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  Ditch Fisher, we frequently include information that is not directly tied to their source of notability. For instance Laura Bush is not notable for having twins and yet we note it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:02, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Both twins you mention have their own Wikipedia articles, and, by the way, nowhere in the Laura Bush article does it give mention the religion/nationalism she was raised in. Regards. Ditch ∝ 05:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC) I am wrong, sorry. It's been a long 3 weeks. Ditch ∝ 05:43, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• In my opinion, Kosner gave up any claim to a right to object to his Jewish identity being discussed in his Wikipedia biography when he wrote his essay published recently in the Jewish intellectual journal Commentary where he talked at length about his Jewish identity, including several Jewish literary references in the article while simultaneously praising Coffee. Had Kosner not spoken up so openly, I would have no objection to leaving out the Jewish bit, but he has shifted the debate in favor of inclusion by his own actions. Four months ago, Coffee took Kosner's specific complaint, and set off on a bot-like campaign of erasure of hundreds of non-controversial entries on Jewish lists, removing, for example, many highly notable Jewish writers and poets from the appropriate lists rather than showing even a modicum of discretion or editorial judgment. It is not contentious to be a Jew, no matter what Kosner and Coffee claim, and bot-like tagging or untagging of Jews is not useful. Every such edit should be thoughtful and carefully considered. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:35, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  Interestingly enough, there was no consensus to undo a single one of those removals. Some were added back with appropriate references, but that should have been done before those names were added to the lists to begin with (as WP:BLPCAT and WP:LISTPEOPLE clearly required). Suggesting we should state something in an article specifically because we know (from them publishing a commentary on the ordeal) that they don't want it in their article... that's bordering on retribution, and would appear to be because you didn't like what Kosner had to say (which clearly conflicted with your statements at the earlier AN thread). If it shouldn't have been in the article before Kosner spoke up "so openly", it shouldn't be in the article now. TheSandDoctor ^Talk 05:39, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  In the spirit of accuracy, TheSandDoctor, I never mentioned Kosner in the AN discussion and repeatedly said that each person should be individually evaluated using editorial judgment, rather than formulaic bot-like editing. I will continue to argue that it is not contentious to be Jewish until the day I die, and that Jewish identity is much broader than formal religious beliefs. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  There was no consensus to mass-revert the removals. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 05:41, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  Moving the goalposts still does not change the fact that at no time was there consensus against the removals that had already occured. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:50, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  I disagree, but anyone who wants to can read the thread and/or the closing statement and judge for themselves. There really isn't much point to arguing at BLPN about an AN thread from months ago. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 05:55, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  I agree entirely it's not worth bringing up here, but I'm not the individuals who decided to bring it up. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 06:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) It would certainly be seen as retribution by any entity external to Wikipedia. Kosner stated quite clearly how his religious beliefs are not a notable facet of his life. Even though Cullen has now agreed it wasn't necessary to include before, now that Kosner wrote a commentary that disagreed with Cullen's own assertions at AN (that being described as a Jew cannot be contentious) it somehow needs to be now included? Hogwash. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

  Cullen328, you can cast thinly veiled aspersions about my character all day if you must (I'm not one to run from bullets), but suggesting we should deliberately go against the wishes of an article subject merely because they opined publicly about their tiresome ordeal? That I am not remotely okay with. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• History of the content dispute – Some of the comments above are inaccurate with regards to the history of this content dispute. For the sake of a clear and (I think) complete record: the content at issue was added Aug 25, 2019 at 6:01, reverted by an IP with no edit summary at 6:02, and reinstated at 6:14. It was removed by Coffee, citing to an OTRS ticket, on Dec 18, 2019. The was the second of about 340 removals of "Jewish" from articles Dec. 18 – Jan 1. Those removals were discussed at an AN thread Dec 31 – Jan 15; the Edward Kosner article was mentioned in that thread. It was also mentioned (by me) at an AE thread Mar. 3 – 19. I shared six sources supporting inclusion of "Jewish" in Edward Kosner on Coffee's talk page on Mar 12. Kosner's Commentary piece about his OTRS ticket that Coffee handled was published about Apr 15 (archive). The content was added again, in different form, on Apr 17, along with a talk page discussion. It was removed Apr 21, readded, and removed again. Category:Jewish American journalists was added today (Apr 28) and removed. I hope we can solidify consensus on this content dispute. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 05:41, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm split on this. On the one hand, it isn't usually necessary to mention a person's religion in their BLP article. People have said "If X is a Roman Catholic/Protestant, it isn't usually mentioned." On the other hand, it is difficult for Wikipedia to ignore things that have been in reliable sources.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:30, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• It's obvious that attempts at persuasion will not lead to consensus -- so, I have started an RfC on the article talk page: [14]. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 09:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I highly disagree that an RFC is needed to gain more participants to a discussion that already has many participants, and I doubt anyone can know what will come of any discussion that has only been allowed to transpire 12 hours before being ran to another forum. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 10:19, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
    • The "other forum" works out to be -- the article talk page! Good luck peddling the notion that this is forum-shopping... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:22, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
      • From the policy on forum shopping: Raising essentially the same issue on multiple noticeboards and talk pages, or to multiple administrators or reviewers, or any one of these repetitively, is unhelpful to finding and achieving consensus. It being on a talk page of the article does not absolve you of clear forum shopping. Disgraceful behavior on your part. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 10:26, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
        • So take it to ANI. Not sure why this is causing you such grief -- it's a good-faith attempt on my part to get a resolution to the dispute. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:29, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
          • Because 1. While here there were several discussion participants who had made themselves aware of the underlying issues, and a robust discussion between us was taking place, you've now created a second place everyone who has participated here will have to pay attention to if they want their voice included in the consensus. 2. I've still not slept because the ethics of this initial issue were disturbing me to no end. 3. You have attempted to state an RFC has to happen because you think it needs to, as if everyone participating here can't have made that decision up for themselves when the time was deemed necessary. 4. This is presenting unneeded stress to an already heated issue. - I will not be taking this to ANI, because I do not see a need for a third place to have this exact same discussion. If this is truly good-faith on your part, I implore you to suspend the RFC until this discussion thread concludes. There is no absolute urgency to have two discussions about the same issue right now. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 10:34, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
          • Launching an RfC was considered and instead I decided to come here. That might have been the wrong way to resolve this dispute but starting an RfC so soon after the discussion started here is definitely the wrong way in my opinion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 12:55, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
          • In a sense, launching an RFC did help bring about agreement... that launching the RFC was premature. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 13:24, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
            • Thanks to Rosguill who has closed the RfC. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Not controversial? With respect to this article, it seems beyond debate that there is controversy. Wikipedia's experience is that Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality tends to controversial. It seems hardly surprising that such text in articles would also lead to controversy. With respect to Jewish identity, such controversy seems to reflect the state of the world beyond Wikipedia, examples in no particular order (to begin with, notice all the question marks?):

• Who Is A Jew? What Is A Jew? 23 Rabbis Respond
• Who is a Jew?
• What are Jews?
• Jews: A religious group, people or race?
• Members of Whose Tribe?
• Judge rules that Judaism is not a race but Jewish people can be targeted for racism . . .
• Are Jews a Race? . . .
• What-does-it-mean-to-be-genetically-jewish
• Are Jews an ethnic minority?

-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:25, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

While "who is a Jew" might be a controversial question in theory, whether or not Kosner is Jewish is not controversial. Nobody controverts it. Nobody says Kosner is not Jewish (including Kosner himself). So his identity isn't controversial. What's controversial is whether it's DUE, but that doesn't make the underlying fact controversial. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 13:30, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

The questions, who is a Jew, what are Jews, etc seem manifestly controversial, not just in theory. So, the concrete question 'What do we put in Kosner's article about Jewishness if anything?' also seems manifestly controversial. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:52, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

That seems uncontroversial. But it probably isn't. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• The person can't have it both ways. They can't say at Commentary that they are proud to be a Jew but at the same time maintain the untenable position that Wikipedia should not say that they are Jewish. Bus stop (talk) 20:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Precisely. I find that argument decisive in this case. Cullen said the same above. Debresser (talk) 21:01, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

The individual is not articulating a stance similar to Feynman. The individual is articulating a stance approximately similar to 50% of American Jews—not observant but to varying degrees prideful. And of course we do delve into Feynman's relationship to Jewish identity even though his notability is not related to Jewishness. Bus stop (talk) 23:21, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Arb Break 1 (Kosner)

Hello all. Edward Kosner has, via OTRS, requested that the following be pasted in this section:

I find these discussions flabbergasting—the modern equivalent of the medieval scholastics arguing over how many angels would fit on a pinhead.

I understand that you are trying to adhere to your understanding of Wikipedia policy in this instance. The obvious problem is that Wikipedia standards for identifying religion are ambiguous and contradictory. Wikipedia seems to think that Jews are an ethnicity, like, say Armenians. Hitler had the same idea. But Jews come from many countries on the globe. Some look like Paul Newman and some Orthodox look like Old Testament prophets and some look like Nordic gods. Only a fraction of Jews speak Hebrew or Yiddish. Most speak the language of their home countries. For some Jews, religion is central to their identity; for others, it's an accident of birth irrelevant in any meaningful way to their experiences and careers.

This is the crux of the problem. Wikipedia does not as a rule identify notables as Roman Catholic, Buddhist, Baptist, atheist or agnostic in entries unless their religion or lack of religion is genuinely relevant to their careers. Roman Catholics are black, white, yellow, brown and mixed. Somehow, it is understood at Wikipedia they they are members of a religion, not an ethnicity. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for Methodists, Baptists and other Protestant denominations. Most Episcopalians are white. But in New York City, most are African-American. Why should Wikipedia—inconsistently—identify Jews? The answer is because some Wikipedians consider Judaism as a nationality or ethnicity. I am an American journalist and editor. I am not a Jewish-American journalist and editor. Wouldn’t it look odd if one of your Jew-tagging editors identified me as a Jewish-American journaist? If I were an Israeli-American journalist and editor, that would be a valid description. But I’m not—I’m all-American and my religion or lack of it is irrelevant to my career. You don’t have to be... Einstein to get the distinction here.

Your colleagues have spent a lot of time hunting down references to my religion, many of which I’ve been unaware of until now because they are so obscure. Both the New York Times and the Wall St. Journal reviews of my memoir were published fourteen years ago, and are, to my knowledge, the only such references in mainstream media. This is clear evidence of how little my faith has mattered in my experience and career. I also get a whiff of vindictiveness in some of the talk-page comments—we’ll show this smart-ass who’s in charge of Wikipedia! Or am I being over-sensitive? Need I remind you that the trigger for retagging me was the publication of my Commentary article examining the peculiar Wikipedia policy of inconsistent Jew-tagging? This is a Kafkaesque interpretation: I am eligible to be Jew-tagged because I self-identified as Jewish in an article about my being Jew-tagged!

I fear I’m going to have to have a big fat paragraph or more about this issue, my Commentary piece, and the response in Wikipedia appended to my entry. This should satisfy those of your colleagues who insist on identifying me as Jewish—and it will inform readers of the entry about some of the complexities and contradictions of Wikipedia.

For those who have access to the OTRS sytem, the relevant ticket is ticket:2020042910010551. I hold no view on the subject of this comment or the validity of the claims therein. Regards, Vermont (talk) 00:43, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm curious about the term "Jew-tagging". Could the person writing the above tell us about that choice of wording? Some people are Jews. Some encyclopedia articles say that some people are Jews. What is the impetus for calling that "Jew-tagging"? I'm interested to know if the writer of the above finds that choice of wording defensible? Isn't that choice of wording a little bit slangy? Bus stop (talk) 01:17, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Mr. Kosner seeks to frame this matter around the phrase "Jew-tagging", but we might say instead that this is really about "Jew-scraping" Wikipedia. Why is that any less contentious or malevolent? StonyBrook (talk) 02:48, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

StonyBrook—the salient point is that his comments including references to "Jew-tagging" pertain to Wikipedia in general. If he wanted to get the word "Jewish" out of his article the way to accomplish that is straightforward. He could simply distance himself from that identity by for instance saying "I don't consider myself Jewish"—or anything approximating that. I've asked others to articulate the basis for removing this information. I think I detect a disinclination to have such a conversation. Bus stop (talk) 03:25, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

What would be more helpful from Ed Kosner is sharing with us what he thinks are the three best biographies of him that we should use as sources for this article. The NYT and WSJ pieces might be 14 years old, but they're the most recent that I can find. His autobiography is also 14 years old, but those three are the best three available AFAIK. The sources posted by Coffee above are as old or older. If there are newer or better sources, we all want to know about them, they will help settle this dispute. BTW, someone should tell Kosner he needn't communicate through OTRS; it's the encyclopedia anyone can edit; he is welcome to join here directly (subject to WP:COI procedures). Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 01:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

If you'll pardon my bluntness: quite frankly, I don't give a wooden nickel about what Mr. Kosner thinks. Having said that, however, I find that this is certainly a strange conundrum we're in: could we not simply that "Kosner has written about his conception of his identity in Commentary," and be done with it? — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 02:07, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, it is Wikipedia BLP policy: "Subjects sometimes become involved in editing material about themselves, either directly or through a representative. The Arbitration Committee has ruled in favor of showing leniency to BLP subjects who try to fix what they see as errors or unfair material. Editors should make every effort to act with kindness toward the subjects of biographical material when the subjects arrive to express concern." -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:21, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

True, though on the other hand it's tough to show kindness to someone who calls you an anti-Semitic Jew-tagger, repeatedly, in public. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 02:24, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

If we might set aside my cantankerousness (which is due to my being sleep-deprived), I fear we're missing the more substantive point of my earlier comment: couldn't this be resolved with a sentence about Kosner and his conception of identity, and leave it at that? — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 02:31, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Javert2113—you said could we not simply that "Kosner has written about his conception of his identity in Commentary," and be done with it? That should be "Kosner has written about his conception of his Jewish identity in Commentary", shouldn't it? Why omit the word "Jewish"? Bus stop (talk) 02:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

You are indeed correct; I should have been more clear in my original statement, and I'd like to plead exhaustion, but it was actually a deliberate omission in a misguided attempt to forge a poor compromise. Sorry. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 02:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Nary a problem. Bus stop (talk) 02:52, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

My concern with that approach is that he doesn't really say much about his conception of his identity in the Commentary piece; I think he says more in the email to OTRS above, but that's unpublished and thus uncitable; I also think he says more about it in his autobiography. Also, when it comes to what's WP:DUE, it's not up to the subject, it's up to the sources. In this case, the subject is a source, but only one source. As counterintuitive as this may sound, I don't think we have much of a decision to make about whether or how to include this content. I think the decision we have is what are the leading sources. Once we identify those, following the sources is easy: we include it if they include it, and we include how they include it. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 02:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with that approach. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 02:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

To be fair to Kosner, I think in his Commentary piece he suggested that 'jew-tagging' could also be the result of working to claim an article subject, not for anti-Semitism too, like 'see all the greats who are'. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:09, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

But they are writing "I fear I’m going to have to have a big fat paragraph or more about this issue". So why not keep it simple: he is Jewish. That is all that needs to be said. 50% of American Jews are nonobservant but proud of being Jews (approximately). I don't see how this situation pertaining to this individual is special in any way. The issue raised is about so-called Wikipedia Jew-tagging. I am not sure but that may be a separate issue from the subject's individual article. Bus stop (talk) 03:05, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

But he seems to say Jewish is a religion to him, so his phrase 'non-observant Jew' would just reinforce how little it matters. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:17, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

"Religion" or "religious" is mentioned 18 times in the Commentary magazine article so I'm not sure which occurrence you are referring to. The reference that I have in mind is "I'm a proud if non-observant Jew, but my religious origin had never been mentioned in the many articles that have been written about me over the years." I could ask you a simple question: what is the object of the referred-to pride? Of course it is Jewish identity. Bus stop (talk) 03:39, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

He explicitly says he views it as a religious origin, not an identity, a religion he does not observe. One can take pride in being non-observant and not be ashamed of something that's not an identity. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:03, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker—I'm struggling to understand what you are saying but not making any headway. The first thing you have to understand is what an "ethnic Jew" is. You say "And saying that someone is a proud ethnic Jew, makes no sense when they don't view it as ethnic to begin with." Even out of context, words and phrases have a degree of intrinsic meaning. An "ethnic Jew" is a person who is Jewish by dint of birth. This is in contrast to a person who is Jewish by dint of conversion. Such a person is not ethnically Jewish. They are Jewish nevertheless. They are Jewish by dint of having converted to Judaism. The terminology "ethnic Jew" does not at all equate to the terminology "nonobservant Jew" though our Who is a Jew? article states otherwise without a citation. Bus stop (talk) 15:28, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Your struggle is not with me, you are struggling against the subject of this article. His points include the rather well established concept that claimed ethnicity for someone else that he and others cannot even see as one ethnicity, so it's not an ethnicity at all, is bound to present problems for that person. Then too, arguing with him about his identity, makes this whole thing exceedingly fraught with personal controversy. Do you or anyone else really want an argument about your personal identity. He says it's religious origin, he objects to it being ethnicity, he says it does not matter. None of that hardly seems unfathomable, especially when actually trying to understand someone else. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:22, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

My "struggle" cannot be "against the subject of this article". The subject of the article is one voice among many and all participants including the subject of the article require support in reliable sources for all assertions under consideration for inclusion in the article or even for the omission of this area of material from the article. This isn't formless palaver. The question is always: what do the sources say? On that we will make our decision as to whether to include or not and if to include, in what language? Bus stop (talk) 16:59, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• This is an important discussion and controversy that Mr. Kosner, through his OTRS ticket and Commentary article (and Coffee's subsequent interventions) might finally help solve. It has a lot more to do than just the simple horse-trading over policies and sources. Much of the underlying issues boil down to perception and opinion. Mr. Kosner himself has portrayed this debate as one about whether being called Jewish means as part of a religious group or as an ethnicity. He stated his opinion that the ethnicity option is incorrect, on two counts: one, because Hitler considered the Jews an ethnicity, a nation within a nation so to speak, that therefore had to be opposed from a nationalist point of view. This is a cogent observation, because it has been at the heart of much Jewish suffering over two millennia of exile. Secondly, Mr. Kosner points out that Jews couldn't be an ethnicity because some are fair, some look Middle-Eastern etc. I believe that it is not about one or the other (religion vs. ethnicity), but really a little bit of both. Yes, I am one of those Wikipedia editors that Mr. Kosner says believes Jews are an ethnicity, and that in turn, a minority of those Jews are also religious. There is a Jewish look too, and I believe that Mr. Kosner has it. As far as there being "Nordic-looking" Jews or whatever, they will either intermarry with gentiles and have Jewishness disappear from their descendants entirely, or otherwise intermingle with other Jews, with their descendants eventually acquiring that look. As Mr. Kosner himself tells it, he stumbled upon his Wikipedia article one day and 'discovered' that he is Jewish. What this probably means is, like many other Jewish people before him throughout history, he had been spending his entire life trying to escape his Jewish identity, only to have Wikipedia (or whomever else, it doesn't really matter) remind him of it. For the record, I believe we should mention that Mr. Kosner is a proud (ethnic) but unpracticing (religious) Jew; as Cullen and others have stated, there is nothing shameful about Jewishnes; not only is it valid biographical information, much the same as when we state that so-and-so American writer has Lithuanian heritage, I believe it is simply wrong on a deeper level for any famous or infamous person to try to deny or cover up from whence they came, and with it the influence that that background inevitably played in making them who they are. I don't think it is fair for Mr. Kosner to characterize this as being about how Wikipedia editors will "show this smart ass who's in charge". Wikipedia relies on reliable sources, whether it is about Jewishness or criminal convictions (no, those two aren't the same), and, per Wikipedia policy, none of it can be censored. As far as advice on how to Jewishly disappear from Wikipedia, I agree with Mr. Kosner that the absolute wrong way to go about it is writing about it in a highly visible magazine. StonyBrook (talk) 04:03, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Especially a highly visible Jewish magazine like Commentary. Kosner is certainly entitled to his opinion that being Jewish is a religious identity but not an ethnic one. However, that does not jibe with his statement he considers himself proudly Jewish despite not observing religious rituals. Scholars of ethnicity certainly recognize a Jewish ethnic group broad enough to encompass Ethiopian Jews, Mexican Jews, Yemeni Jews, Argentinian Jews, British Jews, Iranian Jews, Moroccan Jews, Turkish Jews as well as all the varieties of Israeli Jews and the Ashkenazi American Jews who speak several dialects of Hebrew and Yiddish, and love bagels and lox and falafel and hummus, and all those people interact mostly happily as part of their shared Jewish identity. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:05, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• Let us just bear in mind that you could be mistaken when you say "What this probably means is, like many other Jewish people before him throughout history, he had been spending his entire life trying to escape his Jewish identity, only to have Wikipedia (or whomever else, it doesn't really matter) remind him of it." Unless they say this it should not be accepted. Bus stop (talk) 04:21, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

That is why I said "probably". I don't know anything of Mr. Kosner except what he himself has written on this subject; using a little "Talmudic" logic, I think that some of that might lead a person to this conclusion, that's all. StonyBrook (talk) 04:46, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I think they are mistaken when they say above "The answer is because some Wikipedians consider Judaism as a nationality or ethnicity." They don't know Wikipedia. I regard "Jewish" as an identity. There are implications to words. "Judaism" tends to evoke religious practice. There are "religious" Jews and "nonobservant" Jews. Except in articles devoted to this purpose, context tells us the implications of words and phrases. There is too much hangup on pigeonholing "Jewish" into "ethnicity" and "religion". Anything can be further subdivided but simply pointing out that someone is "Jewish" goes a moderate distance in shedding some light on that person's identity. If they didn't identify as a Jew their way to articulate that is simple. They can say "I don't consider myself a Jew." But this is at odds with "I'm a proud if non-observant Jew". Bus stop (talk) 05:41, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

There is another point to be made here: If Mr. Kosner is stating that he is a proud Jew, what could possibly be the hangup with having his background mentioned here? I don't believe that it has much to do with possibly being confused with a religious person; I do fear it has more to do with the all-too-familiar refrain that the Jews control the media. If my suspicion is correct, it puts Mr. Kosner's problem with Wikipedia in a clearer light, meaning he might be uncomfortable with possibly having this canard being bolstered through him. Maybe admirable in some respects, but as I've said above, I concur with those above who assert that being Jewish is not a liability. Jews don't control Wikipedia either. StonyBrook (talk) 06:21, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

In no way would he have to be suspiciously ashamed of his religious origin. To him at 82, it's a distant religious origin, one that he does not observe, perhaps almost never observed, and according to him has nothing to do with his life's work. And saying that someone is a proud ethnic Jew, makes no sense when they don't view it as ethnic to begin with. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:09, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

All this is so strange to me. His parents were Jewish, he was bar mitzvahed, he was married by a rabbi in a synagogue (I think multiple times), he writes in a Jewish magazine that he's a proud Jew, yet he's going to great lengths to keep this word out of his WP biography. I wonder if he asked the Times and Journal for a retraction when they wrote that he was Jewish? Did he threaten to cancel his subscription? Or is this special treatment just for Wikipedia? Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 15:38, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Life is strange and living people are regularly unwilling to be boxed. Regardless, when I examine his underlying assumptions and arguments in good faith, I find it within normal human reason. (Just one example, if an NYT reviewer says about me something like 'ham eating Jew', one reasonable reaction is 'WTF does that mean, it means nothing, nothing but snark').-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:27, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

"WTF does that mean" might be a reasonable reaction to "ham eating Jew" for some, but not in this case, not for Kosner. "Ham-eating Jew" is a reference to a Jew who doesn't keep kosher (pork is forbidden). It is a way of saying "a non-observant Jew", or at least a Jew who is not so devout as to keep kosher. One might think this was some kind of slur, or at least criticism–i.e. a "ham eating Jew" is not a real Jew–but actually it's not. Most Jews don't keep kosher; I am also a ham-eating Jew. It's not really the most polite phraseology–I wouldn't suggest we write that in the encyclopedia–but it's not a criticism or an attack, as Kosner seems to suggest. Here's what he wrote in the Commentary piece about it:

The reviewer called me a “ham-eating Jew” because I’d mentioned that my American-born and fiercely assimilationist mother had occasionally served us a slab of grilled ham from Safeway topped with a slice of pineapple—that midcentury delicacy “Ham Steak Hawaiian.”

But that's not really truthful. For one thing, he didn't write in his autobiography that his mother "occasionally" served ham, the word he used was "often". More importantly, it was Kosner himself who used the "ham eating" to illustrate his and his family's Jewish identity. Here's what he wrote in his autobiography about it, starting at p. 17:

Like other assimilating second-generation American Jews, my parents were observant in the most idiosyncratic way. My mother lit the Sabbath candles and patronized Shulman, the cranky lobster butcher, but often served ham steak Hawaiian from Safeway.

The autobiography goes on for several pages from there, describing in some detail his Jewish upbringing and his parents' Jewish identity. Kosner himself is using ham eating to show that they didn't keep kosher. I'm not sure why he objects to the NYT review echoing his own words, or why he objects to "Jewish" being mentioned at all in his Wikipedia biography. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:09, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

That would appear to be because, as Kosner stated directly above, "I’m all-American and my religion or lack of it is irrelevant to my career.". — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 17:45, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

But we know that we include material that is relevant to a subject's life, not just to a subject's career. Wouldn't that be why we delve into Feynman's distancing himself from Jewish identity? Bus stop (talk) 18:01, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

If it's not relevant, then why did he write about it for pages and pages in his autobiography? Why did the NYT and WSJ mention it? It doesn't matter if it's relevant to his career, because we're not writing a LinkedIn page or a resume; we're writing a biography. It is relevant to his biography; that's why he wrote about it in his autobiography, and why we should mention it in ours. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:05, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I take from this line of Kosner's above "For some Jews, religion is central to their identity; for others, it's an accident of birth irrelevant in any meaningful way to their experiences and careers" and this line "This is clear evidence of how little my faith has mattered in my experience and career" that he also finds his religion (or lack of such) irrelevant to his life, including and excluding his career. Talking about how one was raised in a religion in his autobiography, doesn't mean he has to be identified by what his parents believed in his Wikipedia entry. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 18:16, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

His email to OTRS is not a source that we can cite. It doesn't matter if the subject thinks it's important or not. We are not writing an article entitled "What Ed Kosner Thinks About Stuff". It matters what the reliable sources say. In all things. I think you continue to place way too much importance on the subjects own views and desires. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:59, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

We cannot insist that he experience these things the way we do, and therefore find him not understandable. It seems almost impossible he would be the only person to go through religious ceremony in youth or later life or not participate in cultural practice (of the something that has somewhere to do with religious food law) and not see it as just religious, of no personal import. But even if he were, when you see something is of no import, it doesn't mean it is relevant. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:21, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

He described himself as a proud Jew in public, so this isn't a case where someone was raised Jewish but renounces their Jewish identity later in life. This is not, and never was, about whether or not Kosner is "Jewish". He is Jewish, even he himself says he is Jewish (a proud if non observant Jew). The question is whether this should be mentioned in his WP article. He thinks that, although he is Jewish, that shouldn't be mentioned. But he's not saying "I'm not Jewish anymore" or anything like that. He says the opposite. And personally I don't understand how one can say "I'm a proud Jew but don't mention that in my biography because it's irrelevant." Huh? Seems totally contradictory to me. I can't square "proud but irrelevant" in my head. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:59, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

At present the article does not contain any reference to the subject being Jewish. Is anyone opposed to this version which simply says "Kosner, who is Jewish, was born in New York City, the son of Sidney Kosner, a salesman for a men’s and boy’s outerwear manufacturer, and Annalee Fisher Kosner, a housewife" and it includes the person in Category:Jewish American journalists. Bus stop (talk) 18:41, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

It would seem there are several of us who are clearly opposed to that here and at other pages discussing this (myself, Kosner, TheSandDoctor, Jimbo Wales, Govindaharihari, Ditch Fisher, Alanscottwalker and Masem, yet also several in favor (yourself, Levivich, Barkeep49, Debresser, Hemiauchenia, StonyBrook and Cullen328), one person who is essentially undecided (Ianmacm), and one person who has expressed takes on both sides (Gråbergs Gråa Sång). If I'm leaving anyone out, feel free to mention them. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 19:07, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I haven't checked myself but assuming that list is complete, and not counting Jimbo or Kosner, and counting wally below, I think that's a 7-7 split, assuming all arguments given equal weight. Shall we now discuss a neutral RFC question? Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 19:15, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

There's Zaereth who also just lent their opinion, and I don't think it neccesairly fair to discount Jimbo (although I get the community's penchant for not listening to him, in this case I think his arguments had decent weight as well). However, I would propose that whomever closes this thread recommend whether an RFC should be the next step. If it is decided that is the most reasonable step to go with, the RFC should sum up all of the discussion here and should neutrally present the question in the same way Barkeep49 did when he opened this thread. Either way, we should definitely wait until conversation stops here before moving to the next step - (48 hours after no comments have been made, perhaps) - but I would highly recommend we get an uninvolved admin to close this at that time before we move forward... for the sake of ensuring fairness. Does that sound reasonable to everyone? — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 19:24, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm agreeable to that. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:59, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• Hi. I should just post that I am still , as previously stated and for the same reasons opposed to this detail being included. Govindaharihari (talk) 19:02, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
• I have to agree with Govindaharihari here. I admit that I don't have nearly enough time to read through this entire discussion, but what I mainly see here are a lot of inferences being made based upon vague implications. We're basically drawing conclusions about this person's private life based on passing statements, hints, and outwardly conflicting comments. If anything is included it should probably be a direct quote, but then again, how do we choose. If we even have to argue about it, then it seems apparent that how he identifies himself is unclear. Personally, I see it as none of my business, so I think leaving it out is likely best. Zaereth (talk) 19:11, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
  • No there are no inferences or vague implications. We have seven sources explicitly and directly stating he is Jewish. They are on the article talk page. The autobiography spends I think 10+ pages on it; nothing vague about that. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 19:19, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Coffee (and Govindaharihari too)—I would be interested in seeing reliably-sourced reasons for not including that he is Jewish as well as reliably-sourced reasons for not including him in the "Category" of Jewish American journalists. Can you present such sources? Consensus as you know is not just voting. Bus stop (talk) 19:05, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I've already done that at length above (and on Kosner's talk page), and do not find it necessary to repeat myself. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 19:07, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• I think we should be very careful with adding religious identity and other similar personal information such as ethnicity to articles, and I do not think the sources show that Jewish identity is important to Kosner's notability. I also do not think we should use autobiographies or other articles about oneself to include information when the individual specifically objects, especially the recent article in Commentary where he is only discussing the information to point out a problem with its inclusion. I think that gets too close to punishing someone for speaking up about potential problems with Wikipedia. The autobiography would be more relevant, but I am still generally opposed to including information written about oneself that one has expressed they do not want included in encyclopedic biographies about themselves when is not significant to why they are notable. I am not sure how that plays out with the balance of the other sources, but they seem to largely be passing mentions or inclusions on lists, which I do not find very persuasive for establishing significance for inclusion. If his Jewish identity is eventually included, I think it needs to have a disclosure that he is "non-observant" and also include something about his statements regarding its inclusion. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 19:09, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

The fact that he is Jewish does not need to add to his notability in order to be included in the article. Once a subject is notable, we write all kinds of things about them, basically anything that there is not specific reason to leave out. So if he is Jewish, we can have it. And since he has stated that being Jewish is important for him, how can we leave this out? Debresser (talk) 19:14, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

The fact that the subject doesn't want it in the article is irrelevant since he used the occasion of his request to have it removed to write about just how important the very fact he wanted removed is in a reliable source. So we give him what he wants...does he then write another editorial on how he manipulated our contents? This is folly. John from Idegon (talk) 19:39, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I wrote this before but after the last comment I will write it again. we added it and he didn't like it, complained about it to us and then and wrote that he didn't like it, so we can include it, that doesn't seem to me to be a great way to include content in regard to living people. Govindaharihari (talk) 19:46, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, he "complained about it", but on what basis, Govindaharihari? Subjects of biographies don't write articles about themselves. Editors in general write articles, and assertions are based on reliable sources. Mere complaint should not carry the day. The assertion that he is Jewish was reliably sourced long before the Commentary magazine article. Bus stop (talk) 19:54, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• I'm going to agree that people are too focused on religion or ethnicity even when it does not contribute to notability. These include reliable sources. This sort of information is traditional in a biography, but we have editorial discretion not to include that. The arguments for ignoring his wishes can be reduced to "Well, you're a Jew. We have plenty of people that say so, even you. Deal with it". If he says he doesn't want to be labeled as a Jew in terms of ethnicity or religion, then we should respect that. We shouldn't be trying to parse his words otherwise, and we shouldn't use the Commentary article as some kind of gotcha justification to retain this information. We may not see the "Jew tagging" as a perjorative, diminishing his career, or putting a target on his back but he does and that is a type of harm. Morbidthoughts (talk) 21:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

  Two thumbs up for this. I couldn't have said it better. Zaereth (talk) 21:20, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Morbidthoughts, Zaereth, this version of the article is not "in terms of ethnicity or religion". It says "Kosner, who is Jewish, was born in New York City, the son of Sidney Kosner, a salesman for a men’s and boy’s outerwear manufacturer, and Annalee Fisher Kosner, a housewife." Bus stop (talk) 21:26, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, so? I was trying to cover the bases of why he objects to the label. However he reads it, he doesn't like it. Morbidthoughts (talk) 22:15, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Morbidthoughts—you are saying "If he says he doesn't want to be labeled as a Jew in terms of ethnicity or religion, then we should respect that". But we are not saying that he was born Jewish or that he is religious. Again this is what the article said "Kosner, who is Jewish, was born in New York City, the son of Sidney Kosner, a salesman for a men’s and boy’s outerwear manufacturer, and Annalee Fisher Kosner, a housewife." That wording does not explicitly or implicitly say that he was born Jewish. And that wording does not explicitly or implicitly say that he is religious. Bus stop (talk) 22:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Again, it doesn't matter if we're explicit in defining Jews as a race or religion when we label someone as a Jew. Enough with the parsing. Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:00, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Morbidthoughts—in this version we are not "defining Jews as a race or religion". It reads "Kosner, who is Jewish, was born in New York City, the son of Sidney Kosner, a salesman for a men’s and boy’s outerwear manufacturer, and Annalee Fisher Kosner, a housewife." Bus stop (talk) 23:13, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:DUCKSEASON: "However he reads it, he doesn't like it." Words have meaning. What you see as not implying anything can be perceived as a microagression because of people's implicit biases. You are focusing on the wrong thing. See WP:RACIALISM. Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:30, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the ambiguous wording is significantly worse than stating that he describes himself as a non-observant Jew. We should respect BLP's preference for how they want to be religiously defined. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 23:52, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Morbidthoughts I liked the "Well, you're a Jew. We have plenty of people that say so, even you. Deal with it" part! True, that is how Wikipedia works. It is sourced, we'll have it.

@Govindaharihari Precisely! That is precisely how it works. It may not seem a great way, but it is the only way to be a good encyclopedia. Disregard the wishes of the subjects of your articles, and just tell your readers the truth. Put this way, it sounds even better to me... Debresser (talk) 22:10, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Naw.WP:VNOTSUFFWP:NOTBUREAUCRACY It doesn't improve the encyclopedia here. Morbidthoughts (talk) 22:20, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Disregarding your clear misinterpretation of what Morbidthoughts and Govindaharihari said, we have a long-standing consensus to consider article subject's wishes. WP:BLPREQUESTDEL even says that we can delete entire articles from the site (amazingly enough, even if there are reliable sources stating their existence), at the behest of article subjects (given certain conditions). We've listened to those wishes a myriad times, and have not somehow decreseased our encyclopedic integrity. Your suggestion that we should treat an article subject with such disrespect - that you think it is okay to tell them to essentially screw themselves and we'll do whatever we want without care for the impact it may have on their lives - simply flies in the face of how we're supposed to handle BLPs. It is indeed not how Wikipedia works. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 22:27, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

That's not what BLPREQDEL says. It applies very narrowly, to "relatively unknown, non-public figures, where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus". I agree with Debresser, how Wikipedia works is that we write an encyclopedia by summarizing reliable sources. The wishes of biography subjects are, and should continue to be, irrelevant. We are not a vanity press. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 22:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I second what Morbidthoughts said as well, WP:VNOTSUFF and WP:NOTBURO are encyclopedic standards that are highly applicable here. They literally permit us to not cover everything in our articles just because it happens to be verifiable. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 22:32, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Coffee—there is nothing shameful about being Jewish and we are not limited to only that material that has bearing on his career. As I've asked you before please articulate with reference to reliable sources why it is your opinion that this material should be omitted from this article. Bus stop (talk) 23:01, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, reliable sources are not needed to show why something shouldn't be included. Reliable sources are the onus for inclusion, but information being included in reliable sources is not the standard for inclusion on Wikipedia, and less so for BLPs. Unless content is simply unsourced, discussion about exclusion is more often about reasoned discussion and consideration of other factors, and it certainly is when it comes to BLP policies, where we do consider living person's opinions, especially for personal topics like religion. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 23:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Also, who has said anything about Kosner being ashamed? I don't think anyone has made that argument as a reason for exclusion. Privacy is not only an issue of shame. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 23:56, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Wallyfromdilbert—please provide one or more reliable sources in support of your argument that this material should be removed from this article. Bus stop (talk) 00:03, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, that is not how Wikipedia policies work. They are based on discussion between editors. Please see my above comment if you still do not understand. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 00:07, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Aren't you conceding that you don't have any sources to support your argument? Bus stop (talk) 00:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

No. Your argument is a fallacious one. You can't prove a negative. Zaereth (talk) 00:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't "I don't consider myself a Jew" be a "negative", Zaereth? Bus stop (talk) 00:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

wallyfromdilbert—correct me if I am wrong but it sounds like you are conceding that you have no source asserting that Kosner might not be Jewish. On what basis should we remove this material? Has anyone, including the subject himself, suggested that Kosner might not be Jewish? Bus stop (talk) 01:24, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Hey man, have you stopped beating your wife yet? You're ignoring WP:ONUS by insisting the lithmus for inclusion is verification. Morbidthoughts (talk) 01:34, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

And my answer to your question to me is, no. For example, a person can find all kinds of proof that God, or the Higgs boson, or whatever you believe in exists. You'll never be able to produce a single ounce of proof that they don't. You can prove a man's guilt, but he can't prove his innocence by lack of evidence. Lack of evidence is not proof. Zaereth (talk) 01:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, no one is disputing that he is Jewish. The issue is whether the content is appropriate or significant enough to include. That is a decision that is made between editors based on our policies, and a reliable source wouldn't be able to prove the content wasn't significant enough to include. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 04:27, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

wallyfromdilbert—please present your argument in support of omitting the information. Bus stop (talk) 04:41, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, I have already done that here. You should refer to that: [15]. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 04:46, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Subjects of articles don't control the content of their biographies, Wallyfromdilbert. Reliable sources play a large role in determining content. Wikipedia should reflect sources. This isn't about your opinions on topics—"I think we should be very careful with adding religious identity and other similar personal information such as ethnicity to articles". We are not in the role of dictating to the world the proper or recommended way to cover a topic. It would be more correct to say that reliable sources are in the role of dictating to us how a topic should be covered. Wikipedia isn't censored. I know that you know that. But you sound like you are imposing your opinions on an uncensored project under the guise of filtering out some material that you feel would be improper for inclusion. Bus stop (talk) 05:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

No, we don't simply include anything because it is published in a reliable source. We use our editorial discretion based on our reasons and established policies. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 05:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• I want to say we are dealing with two different problems here that as a net result, a conservative approach would be leave out these details in ethnicity and religion unless they are a central facet to the person's notability or importance. Not just oft-repeated.

  Point one is the "Jewish" confusion between the religion and the ethnicity which has been a long-standing problem on WP. (I think the last big issue came up around Bernie Sanders around last election cycle). I am neither by-ethnic nor by-faith Jewish but I know there's so many different levels of subtlity involved in there based on past WP discussions that its almost a problem we want to avoid unless for the BLP or topic that has BLP connotations it is essential to discuss, and when that comes up, we want to be using what the BLP has said themselves avoid the accidental implications, in the case that "Jewish" may give.

  The second point is that are some ethnicities and religions that gain undue attention for better or worse. There are editors who I am sure that they are a proud person of ethnic/religion X and would love to make sure that BLPs of X are highlighted when they can be identified; that's human nature. I also do believe that there's a far rarer set of editors that are a bit more malicious that would like to call out certain ethnics or religions (something akin to calling out people aligned with the old Nazi Germany state). Either way, this leads editors to focus on trying to prove these details out, and that might lead to poor source choices, or digging beyond what we'd want them to.

• For a combination of these reasons, I'd rather us not include either ethnicity or religion unless you cannot talk about the person without that being core to their importance. --Masem (t) 00:00, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

But that is exactly the point; ethnic or national backgrounds make up the core of every person who has an article here. It tells us a lot about them, and we are seeking knowledge here after all. And a person cannot deny their upbringing as surely as a leopard cannot hide its spots. StonyBrook (talk) 00:18, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

What are the policies or guidelines that necessitates this background information for a "good" biography? Closest thing I can find is MOS:ETHNICITY, and even then it tells us not to emphasise ethnicity or religion if it's not pertinent to their notability. Morbidthoughts (talk) 01:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Mostly, I think this is one of those cases where more than a little editorial judgment is required. In sensitive cases such as this, I would usually lean hard toward respecting the subject's own wishes. Ethnicity is really a very subjective matter; almost as much as religion. Go back 30 generations and you can count millions of people that you can call great, great grandparents. We're all a little bit of everything. But in the case where the subject specifically requests not to be labeled anything, then I would want to honor that request out of basic human kindness. It doesn't seem to me to alter the person he is one way or the other. You can't possibly write a policy for every possible situation, nor would it be a good idea. Guidelines are just that, guides to use our editorial judgment wisely.Zaereth (talk) 01:55, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Zaereth—this isn't the forum for you to wax eloquent about "grandparents", "generations" and "kindness". Perhaps a User Talk page would be a more suitable place. Bus stop (talk) 02:09, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Dude, WP:Battleground. Morbidthoughts (talk) 02:30, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Zaereth a fair point about people being a little bit of everything, but we are talking here about a full-fledged Jewish person by all accounts. StonyBrook (talk) 02:40, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

It also might be worthwhile to review the discussion around the removal of the religion field from the infobox, there's a lot of overlap there. --Masem (t) 02:31, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Morbidthoughts MOS:ETHNICITY only says to keep ethnicity out of the lead section, not the article body itself. StonyBrook (talk) 02:32, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

... and nowhere does it say it's necessary to a good biography if known. Morbidthoughts (talk) 02:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

"Necessary" isn't the applicable standard. If we reduced the biography to just what was "necessary", it would be a stub, or perhaps not exist at all. Better questions are: does it improve the reader's understanding of the subject? Is the reader's understanding incomplete without it? I'm hard pressed to imagine a biography that doesn't discuss the person's childhood and family. To me, if a person was raised in a particular religious or cultural or ethnic or whatever tradition, that's important information for a biography of the person. You wouldn't have a complete understanding of the biography subject if you didn't know that they went to church every Sunday, or temple, or not, or that they were bar mitvahed or Christened or baptized or similar. That might not be an important part of someone's career, but it is an important part of someone's life, and a biography (unlike a resume) is about a person's life, not just their career. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 16:32, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

We do have standards for determining good articles, that states good articles should stay "focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail". Kosner has repeatedly said this part of his life is not important, and this back and forth about necessary and important falls under WP:ITSIMPORTANT. From reading his objections and the excerpts of his autobiography that you provided, he is concerned that being labeled Jewish or raised in a Jewish family[16] would feed into implicit stereotypes and invalidate his life and work, and your comments about "complete understanding" makes his concerns valid. Morbidthoughts (talk) 17:26, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure which GAR criteria, or other WP policy/guideline, says that we should exclude that which the subject thinks is unimportant. You'll also have to explain that last part to me about my comment validating his concerns. You don't think someone's childhood, family, or cultural background are important parts of their biography? Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:13, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Read up on microinvalidation: "communications that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a person belonging to a particular group" You are arguing that background information like ethnicity or religion gives us insight into the person (how so?) when the subject says it doesn't. This is classic microinvalidation. I don't believe childhood, family, or cultural background is important for EVERY biography, and no standard or guideline mandates them. In fact, MOS:IDENTITY warns us not to label people carelessly. Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:21, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Believing that a person's cultural background is an important part of their biography is not a microaggression or anything like that. Disagreement is not invalidation. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 19:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

It is microagression to impose a label onto Posner and his family that he says doesn't apply. Your attempt to reframe this as a general best practice for biographies does not excuse this. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:11, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

In his autobiography he wrote that his parents are American Jews, and in the Commentary piece, he wrote that he is a proud if non-observant Jew, so I'm not seeing how that is "imposing a label...that he says doesn't apply". He never said the label doesn't apply–he is not saying he's not Jewish; he says the exact opposite, that he is a proud Jew. He doesn't say the label doesn't apply, what he says is it's not important enough to include in his biography. And my belief that it is important enough to include in his biography is not a microaggression or any kind of aggression or misconduct; it's rather ridiculous to suggest otherwise. And nobody is "imposing" anything on anybody here. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 20:37, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Despite the seeming contradictions, he believes it's a misleading label the way it's presented.[17]. That his upbringing was Jewish when he has written that his family wasn't very Jewish in its practices. He also clearly has an issue with being labeled, Jewish American journalist, which was inserted as a category. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:53, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I think you're entirely missing the point that we're not just doing this because the article subject wants it, there are currently a majority of Wikipedia editors who do not want this added to the page. While not a consensus yet, I would definitely say there isn't a consensus that this has to be added. WP:VNOTSUFF specifically states: While information must be verifiable to be included in an article, all verifiable information need not be included in an article. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and that it should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is upon those seeking to include disputed content. Nowhere in there does it state editors have to prove there's an additional policy that says we don't have to include something for it to be excluded. If there is no consensus to add disputed content or consensus deems something unworthy of inclusion, it is simply omitted (regardless of how passionately some disagree). That's all the policy there is, and that's all the policy that need be. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 18:40, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Not sure where you're going with this. Nobody is saying we don't make decisions by consensus. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:48, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Coffee—Please be so kind as to present your argument for why we should filter content in this instance. Alternatively, you could initiate a community-wide discussion, for instance at the Village Pump, to omit related content in related circumstances. I would like to have a civil discussion, so please compose your thoughts carefully, and I promise I will do the same. Bus stop (talk) 19:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I've already done that at extreme and exaustive length in the preceeding parts of this thread. I will not be participating in repetition ad naseum. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 19:27, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Coffee—you may think you have presented a cogent argument but you have not. You can engage in dialogue with me or not. You can't claim there is consensus to omit information that is standardly included in biographies, both at Wikipedia and virtually anywhere else. You are not going to slip through a practice in this instance which obviously is not practiced community-wide. The subject of this article literally said they are proud to be a Jew in a recent article in Commentary (magazine) so we're not "outing" this person in a facet of their identity in which they would rather remain "closeted". Discussion is the lifeblood of Wikipedia in cases of dispute. You can tell me one good reason this material should be omitted and I can try to match your reasoning with reasoning of my own. In the absence of dialogue you can't claim any kind if legitimate consensus. Consensus at Wikipedia is based on the quality and strength of the arguments on the different sides of an issue. As I've suggested, you can also present your argument on a community-wide basis at the Village Pump. Your refusal to engage in dialogue I think forfeits any solidity of ground that you may think you stand on in this issue. Bus stop (talk) 19:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Editors don't have to agree with your opinions for there to be a consensus, nor have you been appointed the 'arbiter of logical soundness'. I don't think any impartial soul could possibly think I have not discussed this matter to the fullest extent possible. To your statment "which obviously is not practiced community-wide"... that is flat out wrong, and empirically so. There clearly is such community-wide consensus, and I already quoted where it is documented above (in WP:VNOTSUFF). As far as stating religion specifically, our current encyclopedic standard is also documented at WP:BLPCAT, which requires that if we're to include a religion, the subject must self-identify that way, and such "beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability". Even if we're to make the troubling step of pretending his statement about being Jewish in Commentary as self-identification (a form of "gotcha" action that could be expected of a shit tabloid, not a reputable encyclopedia), it remains clear this is not relevant to Kosner's public life or notability. You're free to disagree, but I'm in no way required to keep explaining this to you. Good day, — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 20:23, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Morbidthoughts I would like to believe that your statement above he is concerned that being labeled Jewish or raised in a Jewish family would feed into implicit stereotypes and invalidate his life and work gets to the crux of Mr. Kosner's objection to the Jewish content in his own article, but his comments below demonstrate that he has instead embarked on a much larger crusade to make systematic changes to this encyclopedia, which began with his collaboration with Coffee. So let us not make this as if it is only about him. It clearly is not. StonyBrook (talk) 19:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

We're only discussing his issues with respect to his article. Good luck to Mr. Kosner on trying to impose his issues onto all articles involving Jewish Americans or American Jews or Americans that practice Judaism. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Arb Break 2 (Kosner)

I have now read through the entire Biography discussion and I’m more stupefied than ever. Wikipedia obviously needs an ombudsman—at the minimum, a highly-skilled lawyer—to sort through these arguments. That person would clarify some of the imprecise and contradictory statements made by the participants, arrive at a clear—not a muddled—analysis of the issue under discussion and recommend a resolution. This could be voted on by the participating editors and accepted or rejected.

Your colleagues don’t seem to understand a founding truth about America: We are Americans, not hyphenated Americans, especially those born here of American parents. I do not accept—nor do many Americans—that being Jewish is an ethnicity. There has been a long struggle against the noxious notion that American Jews have a dual loyalty to America and to some alien nation, most recently Israel. This has been a central, tragic element in anti-Semitism in Europe and here for centuries.

If being Jewish is not deemed an ethnicity—certainly in America—it is a faith. And if it is a faith, it is no more appropriate in a Wikipedia entry about a native-born American than being Roman Catholic, Buddhist, Chaldean or whatever—unless it is plainly relevant to the experiences and career of the subject and would be so recognized by readers. This is the fair and commonsensical standard used by the New York Times in its obituaries. It is the standard I would like to see Wikipedia adopt for both living and dead subjects and it is the underlying reason I have pursued this matter so strenuously. - Edward Kosner

This message was requested by Kosner to be posted here, relevant OTRS ticket is ticket:2020050110006632. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 18:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

FYI: I merged the ticket to the earlier ticket (ticket:2020042910010551). --MrClog (talk) 19:28, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• Mr. Kosner seems to think that he can use his own article as a crowbar to work his own political views into the encyclopedia. This is highly inappropriate, because the weighty issues he raises, should simply not be discussed in connection with an editorial debate about his own article. I will not take the bait and tangle with some of the issues he has raised, nor, I believe, should anyone else. StonyBrook (talk) 20:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't believe anything he stated is evidence that he wants to "work his own political views into the encyclopedia", much of what he proposed is already part of our system as documented at WP:BLPCAT and WP:CAT/R. I find your disrespectful tone to be inappropriate to this forum, and entirely out of line with the WMF's resolution on how we're to respond to BLP subject's complaints (specifically note 4: Treating any person who has a complaint about how they are described in our projects with patience, kindness, and respect, and encouraging others to do the same). — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 20:31, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• Coffee—the subject of the article is primarily addressing Wikipedia as a whole. They are not primarily addressing their article. Bus stop (talk) 20:57, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Coffee respect is not a one-way street. In his Commentary article Mr. Kosner saw fit to characterize Wikipedia "editors" he doesn't agree with in scare quotes. In this way he has potentially offended many Wikipedians and he ought to apologize or at least clarify what he meant before trying to get something changed. And my comment about this not really being about him but rather a broader agenda still stands. StonyBrook (talk) 21:27, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@StonyBrook: your response to Kosner crossed a line. Attacking article subjects and casting aspersions for merely proposing ideas is not appropriate conduct becoming of an editor. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 21:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Certainly not my intention to offend or attack. I am the only editor addressing our subject with an honorific. StonyBrook (talk) 22:02, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I also don't see a "don't piss off wikipedia editors" exception to WP:BLPKIND. I agree it's not helpful, but we shouldn't be carrying grudges into discussions on how to improve the encyclopedia. Morbidthoughts (talk) 21:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@StonyBrook: Saying an honorific before someone's name does not then somehow give a "free pass" or "get out of jail free" card to then disparage them anyways. That is fallacious. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:02, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• • • I think his stance "Jewish is not an ethnicity" is a point of debate - or in that, its a statement that Wikipedia will never state in wikivoice; we can talk to that debate of course but WP isn't going to take sides in it. But that points to the end of the day that a person being Jewish-by-ethnicity or Jewish-by-religion is a very personal thing, and thus something we should keep out (as Kosney points out and in agreement with the NYTimes standard) of our BLPs unless relevant to the person's life. --Masem (t) 20:40, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

• • • • It is a point of debate. To quote one reliable source, Pew Research Center: One of the first decisions that had to be made in conducting this study and analyzing its results was to answer the question, “Who is a Jew?” This is an ancient question with no single, timeless answer. On the one hand, being Jewish is a matter of religion – the traditional, matrilineal definition of Jewish identity is founded on halakha (Jewish religious law). On the other hand, being Jewish also may be a matter of ancestry, ethnicity and cultural background. Jews (and non-Jews) may disagree on where to draw the line. Alan posted a whole bunch more sources that address this question at the beginning of this thread. BTW, Kosner is also wrong about most Americans not accepting being Jewish is an ethnicity. According to the American Jewish Committee's 2019 Survey of American Jewish Opinion [18], 59% of American Jews think being Jewish is "mostly a matter of ethnicity or culture"; 24% think it's "mostly a matter of religion". Surveys in Israel find the same thing [19]; in Israel, 51% of Jews think it's mostly ethnicity or culture; 24% mostly religion. The truth is the opposite of what Kosner is claiming. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 20:46, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

How do surveys of Jews in America and other countries prove Kosner wrong?! His argument rests on Americans in general and their views, not specifically Jews? Morbidthoughts (talk) 21:03, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Masem that it is unlikely we will find an end to all the multiple related issues of 'What is a Jew?' per the number of source links I put in my first comment above. Also agree, with Masem's result for the Kosner article. Kosner has certainly done nothing wrong, here. It's regularly Wikipedia's process and often hope that article level issues lead to thoughts about improvements to Wikipedia policy or guidelines, but I just don't see these issues being worked-out by us for improved guidelines, at this time, maybe down the line where there are several similar circumstances to talk about.

On a more prosaic note, and certainly not addressed to Mr. Kosner who has only commented twice as people avidly discuss his person, but to the rest of us, it is time to really look at the advice in WP:BLUDGEON, especially its words on such personal matters as religion/ethnicity/nationality, etc. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:29, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, this this entire discussion is circular. The one side is never going to convince the other, and visa versa. Outsiders to this whole debate like Masem and I, who have frequented this page for a long time, have tried to give our opinions, to no avail. I really don't understand the passionate need to push something like this into an article, but it is prevalent wherever people are so passionate about some specific trait, such as religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and so many other things which for many are very private and personal things. I personally think that when I get this passionate about something then I've likely lost the ability to see or handle it with any objectivity, and perhaps it would be time for me to step back.

At any rate, someone here suggested RFC, and I think that's a great idea at this point. Those like me with no dog in this fight probably don't have all day and night to leave more than one or two comments a day, so they're just getting drowned out by the fray, so I think this forum has outlived it's usefulness here. The RFC format I think should help, because then it's more or less one comment per person, and thus is more manageable. But there is no point in everybody repeating themselves over and over here. This is already long past spiraling out of control. I think it's best just to close this down, everybody step back and take a few breaths, and take it to RFC. Then listen to what the outsiders to this conflict have to say instead of circling the same old wagons. Zaereth (talk) 22:07, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Zaereth—speaking only for myself I am "passionate about" opposing censorship. The subject of this article is not a participant in this discussion like you and I are. I cannot directly address the subject of this article. The subject of the article cannot directly address me. The subject of the article primarily addresses issues other than the Edward Kosner article. For instance we are not entertaining the propriety of the purpose-built notion of "Jew-tagging". Our purpose is writing biographies. They're are meant to be informative. They are not meant to be censored. We don't need filters screening out "micro-aggressions". We are not discussing nationalities. We are not discussing hyphenated Americans. "Jewish" need not be pigeonholed into a slot of religion, ethnicity, and so forth just to say in a biography that someone is Jewish. The sources say it. The subject himself says it. The subject of the article is addressing a wide range of issues but not necessarily the one article that we are discussing. A month ago they wrote in Commentary (magazine) that they are proud to be Jewish. Just because they have other things to talk about doesn't mean the article in question should not say he is Jewish. This isn't the Madoff article or the Epstein article or the Boesky article—all of which say the subject is Jewish. The Kosner article is an article on an erudite writer who last month publicized his pride in being a Jew. Wikipedia should not be turned on its head by this incident. Wikipedia should continue to be uncensored. Bus stop (talk) 23:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

There is zero censorship going on here, and to suggest there is is disruptive. (Censorship would be an outright ban on any mention of "Jewish" or any religion altogether across the border. --Masem (t) 23:30, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Masem—you reference an outright ban on any mention of "Jewish" or any religion—but we aren't talking about "religion". Do you see the word "religion" in this version of the article? Of course not. It says "Kosner, who is Jewish". Bus stop (talk) 00:14, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, no one has claimed that Kosner is not Jewish, no one has claimed that being Jewish is shameful, and no one has argued for "censorship" (unless you are using your own idiosyncratic meaning). If you are going to respond to every comment thread, then I believe you need to be more careful with characterizing others' arguments. If you genuinely are unable to understand the arguments others are making, then you may want to limit your responses to them. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 00:23, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

^^^^^ This. Every discussion I've seen Bus stop in seems to degrade into this. They should know better. --Masem (t) 00:27, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

I concur 100%. Their arguments are often flawed and fail to convince, which inevitably leads to aspersions, deflections, repetitions, more repetitions, and finally cries of censorship; the last-ditch resort of desperation (short of personal attacks). I gave my opinion and that hasn't changed, so I feel no need to repeat myself, and Bus Stop's arguments have only served to reinforce them, so I'm out. The only thing I'm convinced of is that feeding this discussion isn't going to help solve anything. And, please, everyone look up the definition of "censorship". That's a far cry from this. Zaereth (talk) 01:28, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

• I apologize to Zaereth, Masem and wallyfromdilbert. I was too forceful in my argument. I obviously disagree. But a more low keyed approach would have been preferable and I regret my shrill tone. I hope for a reset, meaning that I hope you all will accept my apology at face value. Bus stop (talk) 02:18, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

  I accept your apology, but we're not trying to hurt your feelings. You don't get to be a writer without facing a hell of a lot of criticism, so I tend to be blunt. As a writer, you learn that it is meant to help you, not hurt, but there's no point beating around the bush. My advice is to slow down for a second and seriously consider other points of view. Only then can you really understand your own, and realize why this is important to you. (See: Theory of mind) The hardest person to see clearly is ourselves, by a long shot, and in seeking all knowledge, we're really only seeking to learn about ourselves. You'll be able to formulate a much better argument that way, but in the process you may also see that other's may have points worth considering. My mind is always open to change, but I strongly feel that race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc., have absolutely no bearing on who a person is on the inside, and that's what is important to me.

• That's what I love about this place. It doesn't matter who any of us are in the real world. All that matters is what we do here. We are here to provide a summary of all information, not all information, and Wikipedia has rules and guidelines about lots of things that are not appropriate for an encyclopedia. But in the end those can only guide our editorial judgment on what is necessary and what is fluff. That involves two things you can't put into rules, consciousness and a conscience. We have to whittle it down to the nitty gritty, and my conscience leans hard toward following the subjects wishes on publishing information that has little significance in telling us who they are as a person, you know, just a human being. Zaereth (talk) 02:47, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

• A quote from Harold Rosenberg: "Whoever undertakes to create soon finds himself engaged in creating himself." Bus stop (talk) 03:33, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

• Include Many people never make public mention of, or don't even know, their ethnic ancestry. So for many articles about Americans it is omitted, and for less multi-ethnic nationalities it may just be assumed by their nationality - but neither omitted or included on any different standard than any other BLP (although I am not sure we are consistent about one significant and fundamentally multi-ethnic country, the UK). Once a subject self-declares it in public and it is covered in RSs at all, it becomes somewhat relevant to their biography. Kosner has created a Streisand Effect scenario by publishing anything about it and that only adds to the significance. I think both the Jewish-tagging and Jewish-detagging camps are disruptive and we should handle it on an individual basis sourced to statements by the subject themself, or DNA testing, that sort of thing. If someone published DNA testing results or analysis about themselves it would potentially become significant for the article, and the more of a big deal they make about it (like going to the point of writing an op-ed about it) the more relevant it becomes. Let me put it simply: if you are writing a biography of someone and know that they were "born to Jewish parents" or are a "proud but non-observant Jew", that is relevant to a certain degree. If I want to understand the background/childhood/whatever of an American one of the first things I'm going to wonder is what their ethnic background is. Am I alone in that? Lots of BLP subjects have wishes about what should be included or not. Lots of people wish they could undo Streisand Effect situations. We're here to be informative and publish any relevant cited information. If Kosner did not want to be identified as Jewish he should've said he is not a Jew or entirely ignored the topic. —DIYeditor (talk) 05:17, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I find the idea that we should require (or even suggest) that article subjects release DNA tests to prove or disprove ethnicity, to be one of the most abhorrent ideas I've seen in my 13+ years on this site. I am seriously aghast that anyone would think that is okay. Kosner has already made clear his ethnicity is "all-American", not Jewish. It is absolutely not our place to ask for his DNA to attempt to prove or disprove that statement (nor to please your personal curiosities). The line he wrote in Commentary about being a "proud but non-observant Jew" is in an article that discusses how little relevance that religious description is to his life, and notability. Context is important here; the context doesn't show an attempt to censor out facts of his life, it shows him plainly stating this isn't a relevant fact (and he doesn't want his life work to be boxed in by the description). Saying an editor of four major news publications should have kept silent or else we implement some form of Streisand effect, is also completely irrational. The Streisand effect is not a Wikipedia policy, nor is it a required outcome of any situation regarding personal privacy. We aren’t mandated to post every verifiable fact about subjects (per WP:VNOTSUFF), and we certainly aren’t required to do so purely because they publicly complained about our actions. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 02:54, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    Point well taken on DNA. But I read that Mr. Kosner asserts that he is an "American journalist and editor" and also that he is "All-American", but not that his ethnicity is American. He never said that. Is "American" an ethnicity? I don't believe it ever was, although there was a running chance for it to happen in the first half of the 19th century. Certainly not after 1965. StonyBrook (talk) 06:57, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    I took that indication from this statement "The answer is because some Wikipedians consider Judaism as a nationality or ethnicity. I am an American journalist and editor. I am not a Jewish-American journalist and editor. Wouldn’t it look odd if one of your Jew-tagging editors identified me as a Jewish-American journaist? If I were an Israeli-American journalist and editor, that would be a valid description. But I’m not—I’m all-American and my religion or lack of it is irrelevant to my career." - It honestly isn't up to me what he considers his ethnicity, I'm merely relaying what he considers it to be. (It would seem per Race and ethnicity in the United States and White Americans [albeit I don't know if he would consider himself white or not] that one can certainly call themselves simply American if they want, as you can write in such a descrtiption directly onto the census. There isn't a requirement to choose some other group if the respondent doesn't want to.) — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 07:51, 3 May 2020 (UTC)'

    It's clear to me now that Kosner labels himself Jewish in terms of religion only. Even though he doesn't practice the religion, he considers himself Jewish just like there plenty of people that identify as Christian even though they don't really practice the religion. Note that he uses the term to describe his parents, American Jews rather than Jewish Americans. To expand on the Christian analogy, the popular term to describe Americans who are Christians is American Christians, not Christian Americans. Kosner has been rather consistent in rejecting the label of Jewish as an ethnicity and the attempted parsing by multiple editors to argue ethnicity had detracted the discussion. Morbidthoughts (talk) 10:39, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    Sorry, I was more broadly speculating about this topic. If he is a Jew by religion only then let us label him has he identifies himself. As for a more generalized or analogous example and answer to your example, can someone who is a WASP not be a Christian? Is there a difference between an Anglo-Saxon Protestant and a Protestant Anglo-Saxon? I've heard WASP applied to people who are not even ostensibly Anglo-Saxon. Like Jew it is sort of an ethno-religious label that means less about the religion than the ethnic identity. If someone says they are a WASP but we know (for some reason) that they are neither Anglo-Saxon nor Protestant, well, I guess we just pass on the misstatement as a fact? —DIYeditor (talk) 10:53, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    I'm not following the analogy and I'm not interested in parsing the meaning or why people describe themselves WASPs when they're not. Morbidthoughts (talk) 11:08, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    A Christian who "does not really practice the religion" to quote you is not a Christian any more than a person is a WASP by merely being white and having Protestant ancestors. Again, while possibly tangential, this situation has implications for other articles since it is garnering so much attention. I understand that Wikipedia precedent (probably rightly so) is that self-identification for things like gender, race, religion, sexual preference is what we use - but we state these things as facts. Further, do we let the subjects of BLP dictate the meanings of those terms? Maybe I should form my thoughts more cohesively and start a separate thread? I guess where I am going with this tangent is that maybe we should use "so-and-so identifies as" rather than "so-and-so is" for anything like race, religion, gender, sexual orientation. —DIYeditor (talk) 11:51, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    I know plenty of people do, but I don't like to second guess people's religious identities against their practices. People can believe in the Christian god and Jesus yet do not go to church or live the way their religion expects them to. They consider themselves Christian and the label is not based on ancestors so I didn't understand the WASP analogy. I don't know if that applies to Kosner with respect to Judaism. Morbidthoughts (talk) 12:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    Kosner identifies as a "proud if non-observant Jew" but stated he does not wish to be described as Jewish in his Wikipedia biography. —DIYeditor (talk) 13:07, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

References

• • I would support that, DIYeditor. (I wish I would have thought of it myself.) Bus stop (talk) 13:34, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• • That makes me a little nervous because I don't think going around looking for people to flag as Jewish is a reasonable use of volunteer time (POINTy at best) and I seem to remember that it has been an issue for you. In this case it seems clear that he has tagged himself though. —DIYeditor (talk) 13:52, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    It makes you "nervous" that I endorse your suggestion? Bus stop (talk) 14:00, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    Well I don't know if you are Jewish or not and I don't know the details of the arguments about Jew-tagging, I just remember that you were involved in some drama regarding that and I don't see any reason why it would be a good idea to make a mission out of identifying people as Jewish. So I don't want any part of that. I also don't want to see special treatment because someone starts throwing punches about their BLP. —DIYeditor (talk) 14:12, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    DIYeditor—you say "it seems clear that he has tagged himself" I don't agree with that. We don't "tag" anybody. He hasn't "tagged himself". Wikipedia doesn't "tag". We convey identities of all sorts that are reliably sourced. We convey to readers that which is adequately supported in sources. These "identities" can include tons of things, including nationality, ethnicity, gender orientation, gender itself, religion... Bus stop (talk) 14:20, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    I agree that if someone is editing a BLP and they know someone identifies as Jewish it is one of the identities you would want to include for the information of the reader. —DIYeditor (talk) 14:36, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    Morbidthoughts you are correct in pointing out that Mr. Kostner views Jewishness as being indicative of religious observance only; he has made this abundantly clear (does the term "Christianness", i.e. expressing one's fealty for that religious background, exist as well?) But your second point is lost on me; in discussing his parents, wouldn't the term "American Jews" be indicative of the primary stress being on Jews, with American being the qualifier, that is to say an American kind of Jew? Jewish American OTOH would seem to be the way to go if one wishes to place more importance on Americanism. Regardless, Mr. Kostner himself is only interested in being called an American. StonyBrook (talk) 11:22, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    For whatever reason linguistically, ethnicity usually precedes nationality (Black Americans vs. American Blacks) while ethnicity or nationality usually comes before religion (Thai Buddhists vs Buddhist Thais). I don't know if importance has anything to do with the order. Following that linguistic order, you can see why Kosner might object to using Jewish American (ethnicity nationality) vs American Jew (nationality religion) Morbidthoughts (talk) 12:26, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    I have no idea what on earth made you take away that I thought we should require DNA tests or ask him for a DNA test. It was just an example. If he says he is Jewish that is fine. The Streisend Effect is effectively policy because if you cause some kind of coverage in RSs or even in an op-ed you have created the grounds for inclusion. Should this pick up any more coverage it will almost certainly be grounds for inclusion of the fact that he has made an issue of being Jewish. The bigger of a deal he makes and the more attention it gets, the more it is relevant. He should've kept it private between him and WMF rather than publishing an op-ed if he didn't want to create public attention to the topic. —DIYeditor (talk) 07:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    You have "no idea what on earth" made me see that's what you said? Let me quote directly what you suggested above: "we should handle it on an individual basis sourced to statements by the subject themself, or DNA testing". If you're not willing to stand up for your own words, perhaps you should have never suggested something so ludicrously abhorrent to begin with. The rest of my comment stands as well. Good day, — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:10, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    (edit conflict)I certainly did not intend to suggest anything in particular about requiring or asking for DNA tests I was just exploring this topic in a general sense and thinking of possibilities. If you think suggesting that we could allow inclusion of published DNA results is abhorrent I have no idea where you are coming from but it is increasingly off topic in this thread. Perhaps this is more about religion. It is not clear whether being Jewish is more of a religion or an ethnic identity and in many cases it doesn't matter. At this point since he chose to use his public standing to publish an op-ed to the whole world, rather than for example coming to the noticeboard like regular folks do, should it pick up any more coverage it would definitely be relevant to the article to say "Kosner published an opinion piece stating he did not wish to be identified in his Wikipedia biography as Jewish but that he is a proud if non-observant Jew." It looks like one more publisher has picked up the op-ed so it is heading in that direction for sure in my opinion. If someone twice-published an opinion piece stating they were Catholic or bisexual or etc. would we not include that in their biography? It's a primary source yes, and primary sources are perfectly reliable for statements of a BLP subject about themself. How we handle this has implications for a lot of articles. What prerogative does this subject have to censor his biography of information he has himself published? —DIYeditor (talk) 08:20, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

    I also think that Coffee misunderstood what you meant regarding DNA tests. Let's close this part of the discussion, ok? Debresser (talk) 08:45, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• Exclude: I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the GDPR or article 6 of the French law n° 78-17 (6 janvier 1978), which are very clear about the automatic treatment of ethnicity & religion. Now the usual caveats apply, a publisher will not be taken to court in France for saying a rabbi is Jewish (cf. WP:DEFINING), but the court would object to someone with a perceivedly Jewish surname being categorized as Jewish in an on-line database (as happens from time to time at en.wp). This case is somewhere in between those two poles, obviously. Were Kosner European, he would have grounds for complaint because he was included in the ad-hoc category Jewish-American journalists until Coffee removed the category (here). I think in cases like this people should respect the wishes of the entry subject. Still, there is no GDPR in the US. Disclosure: I am no more Jewish than I am Charlie (or Bravo, for that matter).-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 23:20, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

  Well, French law does not really apply here. In any case, this is not "someone with a perceivedly Jewish surname being categorized as Jewish". That Kosner is Jewish is something that he has stated himself and which is reliably sourced. An encyclopedia should not cater to the whims of people who want information removed from their biography, whatever information that would be. That is censoring. Debresser (talk) 08:48, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

  Agree with this. A great many BLPs, particularly about actors and the like, include information like religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation even when it has not had a significant impact on what they are notable for. These sorts of information are I think fundamental to a biography. Once disclosed by the subject I don't see how this can just be swept under the rug. It's a slippery slope and bad precedent. This article should not get special treatment. —DIYeditor (talk) 09:00, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

  Let's make a difference between "fully disclosed" compared to "alluded to", in terms of a facet of his life that has no relevance on his importance. From what I've seen of Kosner's statements to "Jewish" in the published material, even his own words, this I would call "alluded to", and thus something to avoid inclusion. If and only he had said, in as so many words "I am of the Jewish faith", then we could include that as full disclosure. As soon we consider any language less than a direct disclsoure as acceptable, we may be second guessing meaning and violating BLP. --Masem (t) 16:57, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

  "I’m a proud if non-observant Jew" is the direct statement he made. So we could quote him. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:15, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

  He says he's a non-observant, so that's a good reason to exclude, unless for some reason there was a need to address his faith. Then we could quote him. --Masem (t) 17:18, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

  Masem—you refer to "the Jewish faith". I don't think the slicing and dicing of the word "Jewish" into ethnicity, religion, faith, et cetera, is necessarily relevant to this discussion or even necessarily knowable. (You write If and only he had said, in as so many words "I am of the Jewish faith", then we could include that as full disclosure.) Bus stop (talk) 17:21, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

  So we should only say someone is "Jewish" or put them in a "Jewish" category if they're an observant Jew? That would be treating "Jewish" as solely or primarily a religious belief, which is a minority view, not the mainstream view of reliable sources and Jews (the mainstream view being that it is primarily ethnicity or culture, not as primarily a religion, see e.g. the Pew and AJC sources I posted above). That Kosner views Jewish as primarily or solely a religious belief is no reason for Wikipedia to do the same, particularly when that's the minority and not the mainstream view. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:22, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

  Let me be clear: in my opinion, whether Kosner wrote in to OTRS or not... his bio should never have been tagged with Category: Jewish-American journalists. As for the text in the entry, prior to his OTRS request I would not have seen a problem with it being included. However, all things being equal I see no encyclopedic grounds for doing so against his will. So, IMO, the categorization was wrong-headed from the get-go (albeit common practice on en.wp, if not on fr.wp or de.wp) , whereas the inclusion of the label in the text of the entry only became so after his request. I also would note that the Commentary article came after attempts to deal with the situation quietly via OTRS. (That said, I'm somewhat sympathetic to Levivich's comments above about hell-raising / name-calling in the press as a means of pressure.)

  Also, Mr. Kosner seems to have two WikiData entries (Q16104700,Q22998227), though I'm pleased to report that (at least for now) neither one of them includes ethnic or religious tags (property-value statements).-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 16:44, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

  SashiRolls, what about Category:American people of Jewish descent? The inclusion statement for that category is "Listed are American people for whom reliable sources have been found indicating partial Jewish ancestry, but who are not considered Jews. For Americans who are, see Category:American Jews." Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:31, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

  I feel that that category, in its entirety, falls afoul of the guideline WP:CATDEFINING. A central concept used in categorizing articles is that of the defining characteristics of a subject of the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define[1] the subject as having—such as nationality or notable profession (in the case of people), [...] . -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:01, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

@SashiRolls I don't understand why you are so happy that his WikiData entries don't include "ethnic or religious tags". I see nothing good about this encyclopedia lacking information about its subjects, and unequivocally support inclusion of relevant information regarding ethnicity, including in categories. Debresser (talk) 18:15, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

This is probably understanding why BLP makes Wikipedia different from a typical encyclopedia. If we were talking someone who died 20 years ago, we'd not have this concern, but BLP is a higher principle over "completeness" of data even if that data is available. --Masem (t) 18:19, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that BLP has anything to do with this.

Debresser: if you click on the wikidata entries above and have a look at his VIAF entry or his LOC entry there is no mention of ethnicity / religion. I don't believe international databases list ethnicity as a general rule because of the differing cultural and legal frameworks concerning such labeling.-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:38, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Shayna Baszler

Is using a podcast interview to establish a person's sexual orientation sufficient for BLP concerns?[20] The podcast in question is MMA Roasted, which hosted by a comedian Adam Hunter, and falls under WP:BLPSPS. I had attempted discussion in the talk page[21], but the removal was reverted and accused of being homophobic. Morbidthoughts (talk) 17:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

If she is out as a bisexual comedian as part of her act, I fail to see the BLP issue here. On the contrary, it is the implication that such an identity could be bad so as to fall under BLP policy, despite her own apparent decision to be open about it, that makes one cringe a bit.--Calthinus (talk) 17:36, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

No, I mean the podcast is hosted by a comedian who is also an MMA fan. Baszler was interviewed on his podcast. She responded to his series of questions that she was dating a woman and didn't focus on gender in terms of her dating life. You can hear a clip of it here.[22]. Morbidthoughts (talk) 18:04, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Right, she is a wrestler. But still, she chose of her own free will to be open on a public interview. BLP is intended to cover potential harm to an individual, but this is a case where the individual herself publicized it. --Calthinus (talk) 18:12, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

My issue is that not only is the sourcing not appropriate, she refused (or was uncomfortable even) to label herself.[23] We shouldn't cite that as her coming out as a bisexual or even that she came out at that moment. Morbidthoughts (talk) 18:34, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

That is trickier, I admit. --Calthinus (talk) 19:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

If she does not describe herself as "bisexual", then we shouldn't either, especially if there is reason to believe she would object. Was there something significant about her dating a woman other than that it goes against traditional expectations? If not, it doesn't seem significant enough to include without coverage in more reliable sources. If she got married or engaged, then that fact could be included, but I still wouldn't see any reason to use a particular label she doesn't use about herself for her sexual orientation. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 00:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

No, it was the classic "Do you have a boyfriend?" question and she responded that she was dating a woman, but that she had dated both (men and women) in the past. When he asked her if it (choosing one or the other) depended on how she felt when she wakes up, she says it's not about the gender but about the person. To my perception, she did not seem comfortable responding to these questions. Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Awards

I have List of awards and nominations received by Beyoncé (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) on my watchlist, following some spectacularly lame edit warring. It is, frankly, revolting. There is no version of reality where we should be including the "VH1 Best Celebrity Bikini Body" award in an article.

Is there already a guideline on what to include in awards sections / lists? These are a plague on Wikipedia, with many software companies, for example, sending their PR teams to pad out articles with utterly unremarkable industry awards that everyone in the business knows are purely a promotional tool for the awarding publication (and an excuse for a lucrative "gala dinner"). In my view we should not include an award unless:

1. There is an article for the award (e.g. Academy Awards), and ideally the specific award (Academy Award for Best Actor);
2. The award is covered in reliable sources independent of the awarding body (i.e. provably not press releases).

See if you think the Latina Beauty Award for Styling Product for Holding your Style qualifies. Yes, really. Guy (help!) 17:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I know of no such policy, but I think there should be one. Of course, there are likely some I've never seen before, but WP:Awards doesn't cover it. (Perhaps we should change that to WP:Industry awards so someone can make a policy.) I see the same thing here a lot, because we get so many no-name porn stars cross this page, whose entire article is sourced to some industry awards nobody outside the industry has ever heard of before. I might as well have an article for receiving a barnstar. As you mentioned, I think this is at the intersection of multiple policies and guidelines, such as RS, GNG, Notability, Significance, etc... If it looks trivial, walks trivial, and quacks trivial, there's a good bet it's probably trivial, and I think a little common sense and editorial judgment is required. Zaereth (talk) 18:38, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Rear of the year I'll get my coat Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Only in death, that's one I was thinking of including as an example: it's widely discussed in the press, but you note that these days it tends not to be mentioned outside tabloids because the world has moved on. I would suggest the same might apply to the FHM 100 most beautiful women list. It exists mainly to sell copies of FHM, and most of us would know better than to imply that someone's merit as a human is in some way defined by how hot the editors of FHM think they are.

I think we should not include these. See also WP:HOTTIE for evidence of the evolving Wikipedia position on this - that used to point to a satirical essay saying "all hotties are notable" (itself a response to arguments for inclusion of biographies based on presence on similar lists). Guy (help!) 13:22, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the governing policies are DUE and NOT. I would agree with a guideline along the lines Guy suggests. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 21:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Coming at this problem for other awards like for video games, it should be: the award should be notable (the body of awards), or the award is being given out by a notable press or trade group with a document-able process that involves some type of nomination and voting stages that is vetted by those not involved. Those that are just decisions made by a single outlet or person, those strictly based on fan voting, (awards that include a mix of panel votes with fan votes can be included) or the like should not be included at all. This should generally help eliminate sill vanity or BLP-problematic awards, and leave those that have shown a reputation due to the notability of award or group giving the award. --Masem (t) 21:20, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I have created a starter for ten here: Wikipedia:Awards and accolades. Guy (help!) 13:16, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks like a good start. Thanks. Zaereth (talk) 19:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Min Chen (biologist)

I was reading about chlorophyll f, when I noticed a link to a page of Min Chen. From looking at the pictures provided and the information given in the page, it looks like the username (Chlorophylls) that created the page belongs to the person subject of the article. The person has no more notability than any other Ph.D. scholar/researcher. The username (and possibly a sock puppet (Chlorophyllf)) is clearly a Single-purpose account. Thanks. Amr ibn Kulthoumعمرو بن كلثوم (talk) 01:36, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't think this is the proper venue to challenge her notability. She seems to pass WP:ACADEMIC given her Prize for Life Scientist of the Year Award. I'm guessing her journal articles are widely cited by her peers. If you believe the creating account is hers, you can check with WP:COIN. Morbidthoughts (talk) 06:04, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm also not seeing any real problems with the article. I agree, she's probably notable under WP:ACADEMIC. The article itself has none of the excess puffery typical of autobiographies - I've seen FAR worse! The creating user may well have been an SPA connected to the subject, but that was a decade ago and the article has been amended and added to by many other editors in the meantime. Neiltonks (talk) 07:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Philip Bounds

I am not reporting a violation. I need help editing the page as the subject died earlier this month. I was trying to edit it by copying the code from another page but have obviously messed up. I tried to insert dates. I also tried to insert a photo but, seem to have messed that up too. Can someone please give me some guidance? Many thanks. Cary B42

Here is the local funeral notice page: https://funeral-notices.co.uk/south%20wales%20evening%20post/death-notices/notice/bounds/4832832

The infobox template has been fixed. How did you know Mr. Bounds? Morbidthoughts (talk) 16:26, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks so much Morbidthoughts, I was a political friend and friend and family friend. We're all very cut up about losing this witty, sharply intelligent amd charming guy at such a young age to cancer. Especially in the midst of all the tragedy with the coronavirus. So very sad. So it's much appreciated that you fixed my code. I haven't done much editing lately, as is no doubt apparent! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by CaryB42 (talk • contribs) 16:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Dejan Jović

Can you please take a look at the discussion page of this Article. Topic is a bit sensitive and to me it seems like potentially libellous claims are repetitively introduced by non-registered addresses.--MirkoS18 (talk) 21:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• That entire paragraph looks WP:UNDUE to me, and mainly deals with the views of a fairly minor historian. I would suggest pruning it severely. Black Kite (talk) 23:42, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Nate Mills: BLP name correction

Please help correct the name of this BLP article. Should be 'Nathaniel Mills', not 'Nate Mills'. I am the subject and have never once used the nickname 'Nate', nor are there any known instances of such use by media or sports organizations, including the IOC and US Olympic committees.

To confirm, I can be reached by name via @olympian.org email service (I have also contacted the author(s) of the source material that was cited, who have agreed to correct the digital record.)

Assistance is appreciated, -NM — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:14F:4500:7C50:9564:3503:96BD:4E49 (talk) 14:53, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

 Done. The article has been moved to your correct name. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 15:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Finlay Calder

• Finlay Calder (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Melville College and Daniel Stewarts did not amalgamate until 1973. Finlay was at Melville College after my time; probably 1962 if he started at 5 though I agrée that by the time he left school the amalgamation had taken place.However the D.S. F.P. members recognised his Melville ties in his achievements.

Trevor Simpson Président DSMC London Club 1982/3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.6.52.192 (talk) 16:00, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The college in question might be Stewart's Melville College. Our article on Finlay Calder says he was educated at that college. Due to the anachronism, I suppose the reference to Calder's place of education might be changed to Melville College, though that title is a redirect to the same thing. Your comment would be better placed on the talk page of one of the articles. It is hard to be more specific since no source was provided for his school affiliation. EdJohnston (talk) 19:37, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Kissie

I came across this article through maintenance work. While referenced, it reads like an attack piece, please could someone have a look? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:16, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Mike Peel, some of it could be more diplomatically stated, but this certainly isn’t an “attack piece”. We note what reliable sources state. It largely conforms to NPOV. I do, however, see at least a few sentences that could use more neutral wording. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 20:13, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@Symmachus Auxiliarus: I read through it, but was left in the dark about what her blog (which is what seems to make here notable here) was actually about. Meanwhile, I learn that "the song did not get enough attention, and many of her readers decided not to buy it", "she was attacked by a few readers who threw eggs and flour at her", "she has released a picture of her naked", "a left-wing extremist group had spray-painted "bourgeois whore" on her apartment door and sprinkled pig blood around it", "she received a lot of abusive xenophobic comments". Is she only notable for controversies? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:23, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Those were exactly the sentences I had in mind. Essentially, yes; aside from being a social media personality, she does seem to be talked about in media for the controversies surrounding her, and the events surrounding that. I’d honestly prefer this weren’t the case, but people will do what they do. When I have more time (and I’m not on a mobile device), I’ll do a partial rewrite of the article. I think at least half of that can be excluded per NOTNEWS, and a few sentences can be phrased better. But controversy appears to be a major part of her biography. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 20:35, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

If her coverage is mainly from Aftonbladet, a tabloid, that may be why there's only controversial content. She may not be notable for an article under wikipedia. Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:09, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Aftonbladet is not to be compared to The Sun etc. It is not a rag mag so to speak.BabbaQ (talk) 23:56, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, someone else at RSN has compared it to the Daily Mail which is considered not reliable for Wikipedia. The wikipedia article for Aftonbladet also states the eyebrow-raising following: "The journalistic quality of Aftonbladet and other tabloid newspapers has sometimes been questioned." and "However, Aftonbladet has drawn more attention for the strident left-wing stance and controversial publications of its cultural section." Morbidthoughts (talk) 02:42, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Faber-Castell

There seems to have been some strange sockpuppetry in the following articles:

• Patrick Faber-Castell (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (courtesy ping Drmies, who was reverted by socks. The "Controversy" section was conveniently moved towards the bottom of the page, but I don't even object to this change. It should just be noted.)
• Oppenheim family (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Faber-Castell family (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Peter_McLovin for a non-comprehensive list of single purpose throwaway accounts. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:32, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Daniele Ganser

I had to rewrite most of the article about Daniele Ganser. It is locked in german wikipedia and seems to be a rather loaded topic.

Many of the quotes were badly sourced, misquoted or just fabricated. Everything that could go wrong went wrong here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 0xkev (talk • contribs) 06:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

I reviewed and reinstated several (not all) of your removals because your reasoning was not based on Wikipedia policy. Criticism of his books should not be removed simply because it is presented in another wikipedia article "with a weird spin"[24] or you do not know who the attributed book reviewer is[25]. I also did not understand why you removed cited background information about the subject to match the German version of wikipedia.[26] and you don't have to cite to primary sources if there are secondary reliable sources that quote him.[27] Morbidthoughts (talk) 08:12, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Morbidthoughts for your contribution. I should have explained my point more clearly. The current version is already better in terms of neutrality. Hopefully, we can steer this towards the point where it is informing and not just slandering the author (I can clearly see why people would be angry with him, but that has no right of manifestation here). Another thing is, where you already started the discussion: The citations may stay, but to have content there has to be actual discussion of what for example his NATO book is about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 0xkev (talk • contribs) 13:51, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying what you believe is the problem with each citation. I have removed the ones with blatant issues and defer to others who are more experts about the sources to review the other sources. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:51, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

I've also reorganised and tried to summarise the criticism of his book. Morbidthoughts (talk) 01:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Arrested Development (group)

Arrested Development (group) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Much of this article contains promotional and over-the-top subjective language, clearly written by members of the group. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C54:4E80:768:B03B:7AE2:17AC:8BCF (talk) 15:15, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Oof. Yeah. I cleaned it up a little, but it was definitely a struggle to sort through all that cruft and puffery. I'd love some more experienced eyes on this page. If she wants to dance and drink all night, well, there's no one here to stop her. (talk) 19:06, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Sexual assault accusations Timothy Hutton

This is the continuation of a discussion on the merits of maintaining the statements of sexual assault allegations on Timothy Hutton's article. This discussion was originally started at Teahouse:

Buzzfeed News broke the story in March 2020 that Timothy Hutton had sexually assaulted a child in 1983. These allegations were put in Hutton's article, with Buzzfeed News as the primary source. All the other sources that serve as additional references to the sexual assault allegations statement are not exactly news sites or trustworthy and highly consistent. Entertainment Weekly, for example, had simply copied a large bunk of BuzzFeed News's original article and did little to no original reporting.

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public_figures states: "In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out."

I would assume that while these allegations are definitely noteworthy and relevant by their very nature, it is of no less equal importance to maintain high standards in terms of verifiability and multiple reliable third-party coverage. I'd appreciate to hear two cents on this from more seasoned, experienced editors in this regard. Charmanderblue (talk) 15:44, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

I dug around and found a few more sources, including a March 2020 Variety article and Deadline Hollywood article, that details both the incident along with the legal aftermath, that could be included in the article. Both of those articles are considered reliable by the Wikipedia community. Charmanderblue, I think there are more than enough reliable sources to include that information in the article. -- LuK3 (Talk) 20:26, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Altaf_Qadri

Resolved

 – Sentenced removed by ElHef. -- LuK3 (Talk) 20:51, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Serious issues regarding my Biography page Altaf_Qadri

Somebody has put a very misleading sentence, "being fired allegedly for unethical work practices" in the 'Life and Work" section of the page. This is totally baseless and I fail to understand have editors/volunteers let it stay without any substantial proof? I tried to modify it but the edit was reverted back by GorgeCusterSabre. This sentence, if it stays on the page, will have a huge problem for my professional and well as public life. I would request you guys to kindly edit this misleading information out. Also, I would also appreciate it if the 'Nationality' is changed back to 'Indian' from the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Altafqadri (talk • contribs) 18:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Altafqadri: Done by ElHef. If you haven't already done so, please review Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 20:01, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Anuna De Wever

Not sure if this is the right place, but the BLP Anuna De Wever (a climate activist) has in the past 24 hours attracted a couple of IPs with a bee in their bonnet about the prominence of an unofficial Flemish "battle flag" being mentioned in relation to a far-right attack on her (e.g. here and here). At the time of the event there was as much (or more) in the media about the flag as about the attack itself, but these IPs claim it was not relevant and are removing sourced material that draws on that media coverage. Some measure like semi-protection would seem to be in order. I don't want to just keep reverting, given the 3RR rule and this removal of sourced material not being blatant vandalism like page blanking or inserting derogatory information. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 21:28, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Andreas Philopater, I requested semi-protection over at WP:RFPP. The article has been a target for the past year or so. I warned the new IP about WP:edit warring, it looks like 95.19.235.124 was blocked for edit warring earlier today. -- LuK3 (Talk) 21:39, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks like the page has been semi-protected for a year. -- LuK3 (Talk) 02:15, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

There looks to be some liberties in the disputed paragraph that the cited sources do not directly verify. Namely that she was attacked due to her fame and that the men who attacked her were members of the far right. Morbidthoughts (talk) 03:20, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

John Ashton (public health director)

There seems to be an edit war, regarding contentious accusations, ongoing at John Ashton (public health director). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:46, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing, protected for a week. Guy (help!) 17:04, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Joey Gibson COVID-19 video

• Joey Gibson (political activist) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Talk:Joey_Gibson_(political_activist)#Covid-19

Disputed content:

In April 2020, Gibson attracted controversy for posting a video protesting against the Covid-19 lockdowns, in which a child holds up a sign saying "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work sets you free"), the words used over the gates of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. After receiving criticism, he deleted the video from his website and Facebook page.

I'm unclear how the Twitter ref is reliable in any manner, let alone meets BLP criteria. (It redirects for me, and I'm unable to determine who the author is and what it is supposed to verify).

I don't know what the TruthOrFiction ref verifies at all. This ref was added after edit-warring about the content.

I've looked for better refs, but have come up empty. I also notice that there's no corresponding content at Patriot Prayer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 16:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• WP:NOTNEWS. Yes, it definitely happened (I saw the tweet before it was deleted), but reliable sources have not yet said anything about it (at least naming him), so neither should we. Guy (help!) 17:01, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Absolutely. It is not necessary to point out every tiny bit of controversy a people (particularly those already the subject of controversy) gets into. Wait for the larger picture and see if RSes make a significant deal about it. --Masem (t) 17:04, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Zoe Boekbinder

Sarahsullivan555 created Draft:Zoe Boekbinder, and when this was declined due to lack of notability, proceeded to remove the redirect at Zoe Boekbinder and replace it with their article anyway. I have reverted this change and informed the user via their talk page but they are unresponsive and continue to revert my edits. I'm assuming the user is acting in good faith but there's not much more I can do here. Akakievich (talk) 18:36, 3 May 2020 (UTC)