Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85: Difference between revisions

Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 10:49, 22 April 2010

In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 16:57, 21 April 2010 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 22:04, 19 June 2024 (UTC).

Jagged 85 (talk · contribs · logs)

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute

This is a summary written by users who are concerned by this user's conduct. Only users who certify this request should edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.

Cause of concern

{Add summary here, provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.}

This editor has persistently misused sources here over several years, despite many requests from other editors to change their behaviour. This editor's contributions are always well provided with citations, but examination of these sources often reveals either a blatant misrepresentation of those sources or a selective interpretation, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent. This is clearly in violation of the WP:VERIFY policy, especially the requirement that cited sources "must clearly support the material as presented in the article".

The editor is obviously enthusiastic and has shown a great dedication to their work here; just for one example, they are currently at number 209 in WP:NOE. Unfortunately a large number of their contributions, I believe, approach the level of vandalism, and repairing the misleading and falsified material that they have added to Wikipedia will take an immense amount of effort.

The obvious impression from this editor's work is that they have engaged in a systematic distortion of their sources so as to promote Islamic and other non-European scholarship and achievements, which is deeply unfortunate as there is much there to promote without any such distortion. In the history of science articles, for example, the misrepresentation is almost always with the object of granting priority in some innovation to some Islamic—or at least non-European—figure. But regardless of the intention, and regardless of whether it has been done with good intentions, however misguided, the end result is the same: a massive amount of misleading or falsified information unsupported by the cited sources.

A summary of the above is that, despite repeated requests from other editors, this editor has continued over several years to:

Misrepresent a source by quoting material utterly out of context; for example, see [1] or [2].
Report that a source supports a claim that it simply does not and sometimes explicitly does not; for example, see [3], [4] or [5].
Claim that a certain figure invented something or was the first to do something, when the cited source simply says that they made or did that thing, without any suggestion that they were the first to do so; for example, see [6], [7], [8], [9], or [10].
Take a passing comment about some connection to a modern theory and claim that the Islamic thinker being discussed invented that theory or is an important forefather of that theory; for example, see [11] or [12].
Report only one point from a source, even if a minor one, and ignore the contrary position it reports, even if that is the majority position; for example, see [13].
Rather than withdraw a claim, if it is pointed out that the cited source does not support the claim, find a source of any quality to use instead, even when that may be of much lower quality than the original source, which made the opposite claim; for example, see [14].
Invent claims and cite sources connected with the issue but which simply do not support those claims; for example, see [15]

In addition to such misuse of sources, this editor has also continued to:

Use questionable, inappropriate and unreliable sources; for example, see [16] or [17].
Use exceptionally poor sources for exceptional claims; for example, see [18].

The links above are just a selection of the problematic edits collected at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Evidence, which contains more material gathered by myself and other editors. There are yet more examples collected by another editor at User:Spacepotato/Examples of original research in Wikipedia and User:Spacepotato/Misuse of sources.

Most of the material gathered is from the history of science and technology, as that is the area in which we have tended to work but I have also collected four problematic edits from just the seven days after 11 April 2010, and mostly from current affairs and general history articles, at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Recent evidence.

Let me be clear that this editor will sometimes fix problematic edits that are brought to their attention, as they have recently done with one set that I flagged ([19]); though they do not always address such issues (for example, see [20]). But just finding and challenging the distorted material that they have added, and are continuing to add, is a daunting task.

Applicable policies and guidelines

List the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct.

Applicable essays

List the essays that apply to the disputed conduct.

WP:CPUSH

Desired outcome

This is a summary written by users who have initiated the request for comment. It should spell out exactly what the changes they'd like to see in the user, or what questions of behaviour should be the focus.

That the editor will agree to apply their enthusiasm to a greater regard for quality and accuracy (both in the choice of sources and the way in which they are used), which would be of great benefit to Wikipedia's users (and editors).
That the editor will agree to undertake a systematic programme of correcting the errors that they have inserted into Wikipedia articles.

Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute

(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)

The following are links to threads (in chronological order) just from this editor's talk page in which people have complained about these issues:

Discussions of this issue from article talk pages include:

Talk:Indian mathematics#Greek Ideas in Indian Trigonometry (the discussion continues across several sections)
Talk:One Thousand and One Nights#Themes and techniques section

Evidence of failing to resolve the dispute

(Provide diffs to demonstrate that the disputed behavior continued after trying to resolve the dispute.)

I have collected four problematic edits from just the seven days after 11 April 2010, and mostly from current affairs and general history articles, at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Recent evidence, as evidence that this editor's pattern of behaviour has not changed.

The following links are to summaries of some recent problematic edits by this editor taken from the main evidence page:

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute.

Syncategoremata (talk) 17:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
David Wilson (talk · cont) 17:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:32, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Spacepotato (talk) 20:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Athenean (talk) 22:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
II | (t - c) 07:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Other users who endorse this cause for concern

If you agree with the summary's presentation of events but did not try and fail to resolve the dispute, please sign in this section.

Misrepesenting sources is a banable offense. If it happens again, there is no reason to keep this user around. I have reviewed some of the edits in Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85/Evidence#Major_misuses_of_sources and there are serious problems. Hipocrite (talk) 18:29, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by certifying user SteveMcCluskey

I first encountered Jagged 85 in 2007, when the articles on Islamic science were a real mess -- collections of claims that many modern scientific theories were already in the Quran and in the commentaries of early Muslim theologians. Jagged 85 had a major role in toning that down, for which I congratulated him[21] at the time.

Soon, however, I found myself questioning [22][23] his careless and misleading citations. At that time I cautioned him that "It would be better if you would engage in discussion to arrive at consensus before making edits that will only need to be deleted or cleaned up after."[24]

This RfC specifically addresses the present need to clean up after Jagged 85's many subsequent edits. Examination of his use of sources since he received that caution shows a continuing practice of pushing the interpretation of secondary sources a few steps beyond the reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent and always in the direction to grant preeminence to an Islamic achievement.

Since most of these edits were in articles concerning WikiProject Islam, for the last two years I had largely left it to the participants in that project to handle those edits as an internal matter. Since it has now become apparent that the negative effects of Jagged 85's edits spread outside this limited area and throughout much of Wikipedia, this problem must now be addressed by the larger Wikipedia community.

Users who endorse this summary.

SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:32, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
David Wilson (talk · cont) 17:34, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Syncategoremata (talk) 17:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
II | (t - c) 07:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by certifying user David Wilson

I was initially reluctant to certify the basis for this dispute because, until quite recently, I had only had two brief exchanges with Jagged_85, neither of which had developed into any sort of dispute at the time. Nevertheless, my first exchange, concerning the edits described here and here, left me concerned about what appeared to me to be a very cavalier attitude towards the use of unacceptable sources—which Jagged_85 admitted to not even having consulted.

I was persuaded to certify the basis for the dispute by this exchange, initiated by my protesting on Jagged_85's talk page about his reinserting into 4 articles a slightly weaker—but still grossly misleading—version of a claim which I had earlier pointed out to him was actually contradicted by the source originally cited in support of it. At that time I was not aware that Jagged_85 himself was responsible for inserting the original erroneous claim into the articles containing it.

Although Jagged_85 eventually acknowledged that he "did make a few mistakes" and asserted that he had not been suggesting that my criticisms were not valid (which, in fact, he had very much been doing), he was unwilling to acknowledge that three of his edits constituted a blatant misrepresentation of the cited source, or that the three edits which replaced them a short time later constituted a blatant violation of Wikipedia's policy on neutral point-of-view, as I had asserted. The most he could bring himself to acknowledge was that he could "understand how it might appear that way."

Jagged_85 tried to explain away the unacceptable aspects of these edits as due to the first three being "provisional versions", and the latter three being "rushed". However, in view of the nature of the edits themselves, and a fairly obvious inconsistency in his attempted explanation of them, I'm afraid I don't find that explanation at all credible.

Users who endorse this summary.

David Wilson (talk · cont) 17:34, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Syncategoremata (talk) 17:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
II | (t - c) 07:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by certifying user Spacepotato

I first came into detailed contact with Jagged's edits when I looked at Timeline of historic inventions in the fall of 2009 and noticed that many of the entries in the list were facially absurd; for example, the p-n junction was said to be invented by Isamu Akasaki in 1989, and the funnel was said to be invented between the 8th and 10th centuries CE by medieval alchemists. I then noticed that over 20% of the list had been contributed by Jagged, and that although his edits were well-supplied with footnotes, the sources he gave did not verify many of the claims made in the list. This was a problem with the rest of his work as well, which has been extensive (he has over 60,000 mainspace edits on en.wikipedia at this time, as alluded to above.)

I would like to emphasize that, although this problem is very noticeable in the medieval Islamic period (as this is an area which Jagged has concentrated on), it's present elsewhere as well and has afflicted e.g. List of Japanese inventions.

My personal communication with Jagged has been very limited, but considering also his editing behavior and communication with others, the picture is that of an editor who is enthusiastic but extremely sloppy, shows little consideration for source reliability, and often does not bother to read and understand the sources he quotes. Unsourced claims of invention often appear from thin air (this is point 3 in the cause for concern, above; see User:Spacepotato/Examples of original research in Wikipedia for some examples of this.)

Users who endorse this summary.

Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC) (who has been confronted both with the marked carelessness as well as the persistent tendentiousness since 2007)[reply]
Syncategoremata (talk) 22:17, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:45, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
II | (t - c) 07:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by certifying user ImperfectlyInformed

I don't have nearly as much experience with Jagged 85 as some of the other certifying users, but I have been part of the discussion with him. When I first saw evidence of misrepresenting sources based on Dialectric's research on the ancient economics article, I dropped a note on Jagged 85's talk page notifying him and asking for an explanation (permalink). He did not respond until after I made a second request nearly two weeks later. I noted others had raised similar issues. This delay in responding, while he continued to edit, struck me as incredible because I would have jumped onto any discussion challenging my edits for misrepresentation or substantial inaccuracy, as I understand how serious that is. I posted a piece of evidence (Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85/Evidence#Islamic_origins_of_capitalism) discussing my interaction and analysis. The overall theme of Jagged 85 is a focus on promoting Islam in excess and often contrary to sources, particularly how great it was in its heyday and how much we owe them for technology.

On his talkpage he has been generally more defensive than I would expect, but still polite. When pushed he'll grudgingly acknowledge errors and sound apologetic, but he doesn't seem to understand the kind of intellectual honesty that Wikipedia requires. When pressed, he said to me that "I agree with your point that it can be misleading to only mention one point of view and not the other, and this is something that appears to be quite common among Wiki editors". I don't see the behavior in question as common at all in Wikipedia. If Jagged 85 has observed such gross misrepresentations, then he should bring them to the community's action. Two wrongs doesn't make a right.

I hope the proposed solutions are enough, but I think ideally we would stop further contributions related to these Muslim topics while he works at correcting the errors. If he corrects the errors effectively, then he could start contributing on these topics again. It sounds harsh, but I think it's necessary.

Users who endorse this summary:

II | (t - c) 07:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:03, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Syncategoremata (talk) 09:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Questions

Any users may post questions in this section. Answers should be reserved for those certifying the dispute.

Q. Has Jagged 85 ever acknowledged one of his errors in representing sources? Hipocrite (talk) 18:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A. As far as we can see given 60 MB of edits, he is occasionally willing to acknowledge his errors if the editor pointing him to it is persistent enough (that is willing to spend no small amount of time and effort). However, one rarely gets the impression that he corrects himself sincerely; more typically, his corrections remain still problematic, incomplete, come with considerable delay and are mostly confined to the article at hand, but not those many other where he has copied and pasted the material to, either. Personally, though, I have never seen him acknowledge any errors vis-a-vis me, although we had frequent discussions on this. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:46, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A. I would phrase it more as "he is occasionally willing to correct his errors if the editor pointing him to it is persistent enough". I can only find one example of what I would call an acknowledgement of his misuse of sources in the last couple of years of contributions to talk pages, for example. – Syncategoremata (talk) 20:25, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Q.

A.

Response

{This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed. Users not named in the request or certifying the request should post under Additional views below.}

Response to concerns

{Add summary here.}

I somehow guessed this was coming, considering all the recent negative comments that have been expressed on my talk page (and the talk pages of the users above). I appreciate the efforts of the above users in gathering together most of the editing errors I've made over the past three years on this talk page. To mount a defence against all of these errors and all of the allegations made against me would take far too long for me, so I'll just make it easier for everyone and simply admit that I have, at times, been an incompetent editor.

However, the one allegation I remain unwilling to accept is the claim that I was somehow "deliberately attempting to deceive" everyone. I never had any intention like that, but such errors are largely due to the fact that I had often been rushing my edits (as I have already mentioned on my talk page), occasionally leading to careless errors. While some users still remain unconvinced by this justification, one only needs to look at my edit summary and see the speed at which I had often moved from one article to the next (often in a matter of minutes or even seconds), therefore it shouldn't be surprising that some careless errors would have occurred given the rushed nature of my edits.

Nevertheless, in light of all the errors I have made (and have been gathered here), I am willing to accept any concern or criticism expressed regarding my editing practices, and will agree to both the desired outcomes ("That the editor will agree to apply their enthusiasm to a greater regard for quality and accuracy (both in the choice of sources and the way in which they are used), which would be of great benefit to Wikipedia's users (and editors)"; and "That the editor will agree to undertake a systematic programme of correcting the errors that they have inserted into Wikipedia articles") as well as any other outcomes (or even punishments) that users here wish to see.

Regards,

Jagged 85 (talk) 10:49, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Applicable policies and guidelines

List the policies and guidelines that apply to the response.

Users endorsing this response

Questions

Any users may post questions in this section. Answers should be reserved for the user named in the dispute.

Q.

A.

Q.

A.

Outside view

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute.

Outside view by

{Enter summary here.}

Users who endorse this summary:

Proposed solutions

This section is for all users to propose solutions to resolve this dispute. This section is not a vote and resolutions are not binding except as agreed to by involved parties.

Template

1)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Template

2)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Template

3)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Reminder to use the talk page for discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.