Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard

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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.

Insane Clown Posse

User:Dylan Flaherty is trying to add a bit about the albums of the band Insane Clown Posse being an evangelized metaphor for Christianity, even though multiple sources, and the members of the band itself explicitly state that their lyrics are not overtly religious, and that they are not very religious themselves.

Dylan is basing his edits on a recent article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/09/insane-clown-posse-christians-god

Statements made by the author of the article are contradicted by member Violent J on his Twitter account: http://twitter.com/bigviolentj/status/27571693759

The themes of the band's lyrics are discussed here: Dark Carnival (Insane Clown Posse), which is sourced to the band's biography, multiple interviews with the band, and the band's website. The only source to explicitly mention an interpretation of Christian content within the band's work is the Guardian article, which is contradicted by the writers of the lyrics quoted out of context.

The BLP issue here is that while the material here has a source, it is contentious, and it relates to the religious views of a living person who has directly contradicted the claims made by Dylan.

Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wisdomtenacityfocus (talk • contribs) 04:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a content dispute to me. If RS'es differ on a matter, list all the RS viewpoints and let the reader come to their own conclusion. Jclemens (talk) 05:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

At this time, any mention of the Guardian article has been expunged. I have tried to discuss this with the ICP fans, and have changed the wording to be more clear and accurate, but there has been no sign of cooperation. I am certainly willing to include any denials by the band, but the claim itself is entirely notable. The real BLP issue is that this reliably-sourced statement is being censored. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 10:20, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Such disputed weakly claimed content is better removed. If the simple claims are denied by the band and you have a single op ed guardian article, there is no excuse to keep it. Off2riorob (talk) 20:10, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

As explained on the article discussion page, none of what you said has any basis in reality. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 00:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The individuals whom the claims are being made about have directly contradicted the claims. How is Jonson a better authority on the religion of another person than the person himself? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wisdomtenacityfocus (talk • contribs) 02:17, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I fully support including their denial alongside the journalist's conclusions, which come directly from what they freely admitted in an interview. I am not trying to suppress anything or force my version of the facts onto Wikipedia. I ask that you do the same, even though you are a fan. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 04:15, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Best left out per the contradictory info, BLP, and WP:UNDUE. --Ronz (talk) 02:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

This is one of those times where we need to teach the controversy. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 04:15, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

That's an extremely poor choice of words. I hope they were meant to be ironic. Regardless, NPOV and UNDUE applies, especially in the light of such irony. --Ronz (talk) 15:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

As a Christian who rejects Creationism, I am entirely aware of the irony. To be quite frank, this is the most interesting thing that has happened to ICP in years. It's extremely notable, and since it's both well-sourced (their own words!) and given no more than a sentence, I cannot agree with your conclusion. But let's take this discussion back where it belongs, please. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 17:58, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

• In this comment another contributor seems to sum up much of the positions of those who oppose inclusion of this material, stating: "The individuals whom the claims are being made about have directly contradicted the claims. How is Jonson a better authority on the religion of another person than the person himself?"

  It seems to me that this position seriously lapses from both WP:VER and WP:NPOV. It is not our job to pick sides. It is not our job to decide who is a more credible authority. Compliance with the policy on writing from the neutral point of view requires us to present both sides. Compliance with the policy on verifiability requires us to refrain from picking one position as the "truth".

  There are lots of topics I contribute to where all the WP:RS have taken positions at odds with my own personal point of view. I don't have a choice. I can't insert my personal position. I shouldn't choose to leave out the positions of all those WP:RS, no matter how convinced I am they are mistaken. And I shouldn't try to remove neutrally written, properly referenced, material. Our articles should neutrally present the positions of all relevant WP:RS.

  Penultimately, I will remind our correspondent that subjects are sometimes not reliable sources of information about themselves. They lie, or they have misconceptions about themselves.

  I agree with JClemons in this. Geo Swan (talk) 04:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It's still a BLP problem, "Material about living persons must be written with the greatest care and attention to verifiability, neutrality, and avoiding original research." It's a single reference contradicted by multiple others. --Ronz (talk) 16:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Geo. I think the consensus on the talk page is coming around to what to say as opposed to whether to say anything about this. I'm hoping we can hash out the details and come up with something that follows Wikipedia policy. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 04:32, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The user in question has made very little attempts to contribute to the discussion on the talk page, and has continuously made personal attacks. He has admitted to a conflict of interest in this matter, and has a history of edit wars. The matter of the article itself is that the author states his opinion that the group is Christian, though not once do the members say so themselves. Numerous others articles, both by the group themselves and independent sources dispute this claim. I do believe that this article should be mentioned in the "Lyrics and music" section, and have made two suggestions: "The Guardian contributor Jon Ronson suggests that the group's lyrics contain messages of evangelicalist Christianity." or "The Guardian contributor Jon Ronson claims that the group's lyrics contain evangelicalist messages.." Both have been shot down by Dylan Flaherty, who has also just continued to vandalize the Insane Clown Posse page by ignoring all discussions and writing what he pleases.Juggalobrink (talk) 13:44, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, just keep it out completely, a single strongly disputed opinionated editorial by someone that is not regarded as an authority on the band at all. Off2riorob (talk) 13:56, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Disclaimer: I've come here by way of this. I don't necessarily support removing it entirely, but this is a joke: The Dark Carnival has been revealed as a metaphor for God, so the lessons are about repenting so as to avoid eternal damnation. If this is mentioned it should make clear which source this view comes from, and should make clear that this is not a widely-held view. ICP aren't reliable sources for anything other than their views, but thus far Jon Ronson's claims aren't held—so far as I can see—by many more sources than the Guardian (my request to Dylan Flaherty for sources met with only this (indirectly: I had to go through the talkpage with a fine-tooth-comb to find it)). Either of Juggalobrink's seem more than satisfactory to me: either The Guardian contributor Jon Ronson suggests that the group's lyrics contain messages of evangelicalist Christianity. or The Guardian contributor Jon Ronson claims that the group's lyrics contain evangelicalist messages.. TFOWR 10:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I'd just like to point out that the discussion here is hopelessly out of touch. Please see the talk page to get a more honest idea of what's going on, including additional references and an actual consensus for neutral changes. Thank you. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 02:03, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

A new article has surface from Christianity Today which questions Ronson's claim. The article is found here and is currently mentioned in the Spirituality section of the Insane Clown Posse article. There has been a dispute as to whether to add the information or not. So a consensus is needed to avoid any more edit wars. I am in favor of adding the article. (unsigned by Juggalobrink 29 October)

For those who have not been following this closely, let me recap. The Guardian article from early October made the questionable assertion that ICP were "evangelical Christians." That article sparked writeups in other RS-class venues, including the Washington Post. The derivative articles generally reported that "the ICP are evangelical Christians", crediting the Guardian. The newer Christianity Today article calls shenanigans on these me-too sources and points out flaws with the Guardian article, such as the fact that ICP has never actually used the words "Christian" or "evangelical."

There was originally some reluctance on the part of multiple Wikipedia editors to cite the Guardian article because of its questionable validity. However, it has become so well known and has sparked so many other articles in response that I think it's fair to say that there is now general agreement that it must be covered. Currently, the Guardian article is summarized and contrasted with tweets from one ICP member that appear to reject its thesis rather explicitly. The question now is whether it is relevant and necessary to cite and quote the Christianity Today article too. Like Juggalobrink above, I support adding it. The ICP's own denials are inherently suspect because the ICP are the subjects of the whole firestorm. The Christianity Today article points out flaws in the Guardian article from the perspective of an uninvolved (though not necessarily impartial) observer, so it is relevant as independent critique. NillaGoon (talk) 06:59, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Nilla about the derivative reporting, and I would welcome using the Christianity Today article by paraphrase so that we can mention this. However, that same article makes factual errors, which Nilla unfortunately repeats here, and we cannot include those as-is.

In specific, as I explained in some detail on the talk page, with quotes, at least one of the duo acknowledges being once-secretly Christian and there is no doubt that they included religious messages in their songs, which counts as evangelism of Christian themes without making them Evangelical Christians, as such. The error in the me-too articles is that they missed this distinction. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 12:45, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Mark Moring

I believe that this edit violates BLP.

The text it reinserted comes from Mark Moring, who writes for Christianity Today, which is an Evangelical Christian periodical founded by Billy Graham to counter the mainline Protestant paper, The Christian Century. As such, the periodical has a vested interest in protecting the reputation of Evangelicals.

The article is an opinion piece that is labeled as a blog entry; blogs are not RS. It is subtitled "Why is the media so quick to label these clowns as 'evangelical Christians'?", and is primarily written with the intent of disassociating the ICP from Evanglicals such as himself.

As I freely admitted earlier, part of what he writes is factually true: some of the journalists who wrote articles in reaction to the Jon Ronson one in the Guardian have misinterpreted the phrase "evangelical Christian" in such a way as to blur the distinction between being a Christian who evangelizes and being an Evangelical. I agree that this should be stated in the article, if we can reliably source it.

Unfortunately, not only is Moring not a reliable source due to the bias and blog issues, but he is guilty of very sloppy journalism that undercuts his credibility. I can't say whether it's dishonesty or incompetence, but he pretends not to have read the part of the Guardian article where Joseph Bruce admits to having been secretly Christian.

I am going to cross-post this now to WP:BLPN, but I'd really prefer it if the conversation could continue here.

P.S. Full disclosure: the person who twice reverted the article to reinsert the dubious lines left edit comments claiming I was a vandal. This bit of uncivil dishonesty was corrected elsewhere and should not factor into our discussion about the merits of the lines themselves. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 00:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

But Dylan, you were all about "teaching the controversy" above when the disputed article conformed to your perspective. :-)

Regarding "blogs are not RS", please see WP:NEWSBLOG: "Newspaper and magazine blogs...are acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control...Where a news organization publishes an opinion piece, the writer should be attributed (e.g. 'Jane Smith has suggested...')." Moring is a senior associate editor of Christianity Today, and he posted on the publication's official blog. NillaGoon (talk) 05:29, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Nilla, the reason that a blog under editorial control is acceptable is that it's supposed to avoid the sort of mistakes that this article has. Let's keep the parts that are reliable and dump the rest. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 20:42, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Noticeboards, source criticism and claims of BLP issues

Over the last few days User:Ronz has been issuing BLP warnings to a number of editors, Ludwigs2, Hans Adler, The Founders Intent, BruceGrubb, and now myself Griswaldo. More recently he has taken it upon himself to delete user contributions to both the FT/N and RS/N claiming BLP violations, and subsequently edit warring in order to keep the information out. What all of these complaints have in common are criticism of Stephen Barrett as a source at the entry for Weston Price. At both noticeboard's Barrett's reliability was being discussed when Ronz claims editors started violating BLP, and he, at least most recently, had to take it upon himself to scrub the talk pages of these so called violations. Can someone look into the most recent claim especially, where Ronz removed User:BruceGrubb's talk page comments. I would like some input on whether or not that was a BLP violation. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 15:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The specifically applicable language on the application of BLP to talk pages (and outside article space generally) reads "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related to making content choices, should be removed, deleted, or oversighted as appropriate." The italicized (by me) policy language gives editors, quite appropriately, more leeway in discussing problematic content in good faith in the process of working out disputed content issues. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 16:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Good point, and reason alone for me to be even less aggressive in enforcing BLP in such circumstances. Still, citing these specific detractors (refactor per 19:41, 22 Oct below) goes over the line with BLP, not to mention the irony when done at RSN. --Ronz (talk) 17:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

We haven't had one of these in some time. As a change, it's not really about the Stephen Barrett article itself, but Weston Price and a reference written by Barrett that is being used in the Price article. Basically, editors have been disparaging Barrett as part of their arguments against the use of the reference.

First, I noticed this pair of comments/edits from The Founders Intent (talk · contribs) on October 7: warning discussion discussion. These problems continued, but not in such a problematic way [1].

In the past few days, there have been similar problems from other editors, as noted above by Griswaldo. I warned editors, noted the problem within the discussion itself, and discussed it briefly.

On 21 Oct, BruceGrubb (talk · contribs) attacked Barrett directly, referencing attacks by Barrett's detractors at RSN, which was duplicated in part four hours later at FSN.

I removed both [2] [3], and warned BruceGrubb. When Griswaldo restored them, I removed them and discussed the matter with him. Now we're here. --Ronz (talk) 16:07, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

(e/c)The removals in question are - here, same removed again, and again, and I restored it a final time here. This is part of a discussion of Barrett's qualifications as a source on a talk page, not the introduction of questionable material into article space. BLP is designed to protect living persons from defamation; it is decidedly not designed to prevent inquiries into a source's credentials so that editors can use a source without proper verification. --Ludwigs2 16:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

And Ludwig thinks this is something to edit-war over [4] [5]. --Ronz (talk) 16:37, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

...Ronz says after his fifth revert on the page... --Ludwigs2 16:47, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Related BLP dispute here. Related ArbCom here --Ronz (talk) 16:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• - Looks like an long term dispute that hasn't been solved yet. As I see it after a fair look, Ronz, you seem overly sensetive about this person, I see you are a major contributor to his article Stephen Barrett. I support the BLP applies all over the place but a degree of discussion does have to take place as regards to his reliably for source usage. I support the position that on a talkpage you should attempt to comment only as to claims you can cite, but I think it is also true that thoughts come out and as long as they are not clear violations that are like a vandal edit they should not require removal. The best is to explain your problems with the content and ask a user to either cite it or remove it, this repeated removal of other users content when it is only perhaps a little opinionated in a discussion related to sourcing is a bit much. I am not seeing such extreme BLP vios as to need multiple removals (small ones perhaps if you were being overly sensitive). I suggest, you all as experienced contributors, ease up a bit, and it there is a touch less opining from the one side and Ronz eases up on the undue sensitivity it will be a good way to move forward. Perhaps other users can have a good look at the removals and comment also. Off2riorob (talk) 17:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• It appears that others have noted this same "sensitivity" when it comes to Barrett. I think this issue ought to air out a bit here so that we don't have repeated issues due to "sensitivity". Ronz, I'm asking this in good faith and will accept your answer as true, but do you have a COI of any kind when it comes to Barrett? I ask because it is not usual that someone is this sensitive regarding one individual. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 17:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• Griswaldo - Sorry, I don't see that line of questioning as being in good faith.
• "As I see it after a fair look, Ronz, you seem overly sensetive about this person," Only sensitive to the repeated attacks made against him in violation of BLP, as I do with BLP problems against anyone else. When editors cite detractors, they've gone over the line. When they repeat information from detractors without citing those detractors, the editor should be notified that it is a potential BLP problem, but the information doesn't need immediate removal if part of a discussion related to making content choices. --Ronz (talk) 17:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Ronz, we have a policy on conflicts of interest which strongly recommends that editors be open about them -- see WP:COI. I wont push this, but I don't think it was unreasonable to ask for clarification on this given that others have noted this specific sensitivity in the past. I personally find your activity in this area, regarding Barrett and criticism of him as a source, to be disruptive and I'd like to understand why you're so pushy about it.Griswaldo (talk) 17:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Again, I don't find your line of comments to be in good faith.

If you're not going to push it, don't bring it up. --Ronz (talk) 17:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I wanted to post some or one of the removal to discuss here, but if you have repeatedly removed from other locations does that mean you would object to me posting it here to look for the actual violations, can we do that? I could ask a completelty uninvolved administrator if the content is such a violation as to be a BLP violation removal revert exclusion, that is what we need to answer, as if it is not then it should not be removed. Off2riorob (talk) 17:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Three threads on three noticeboards about this one issue should indicate to the Administrators that the real problem can likely be identified by looking at a common denominator. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 17:51, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• - Is this addition (from BruceGrubb) which includes some external links a BLP violation on a takpage discussion worthy of BLP removal (revert exempt) ? Off2riorob (talk) 18:01, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

You don't get it. It is not a "disagreement" with Barrett but that every claim aobut Price can be shown to be in error if not out right wrong. If the online reports regarding the Stephen Barrett, M.D. vs. Tedd Koren, D.C. and Koren Publications, Inc., King Bio Pharmaceuticals cases are totally factual in their details Barrett has serious credibility problems--possibly enough to discredit him as a WP:RS. The Quackbuster, Stephen Barrett, MD, loses appeal and leaves home town article claims that at the time of writing Barrett had not won a single lawsuit that went to trial. Furthermore how on earth do you lose a case regarding saying homeopathy is quackery? That should have been a slam dunk for an actual expert.

@ Off2riorob: I posted diffs of the contested passage in my 16:02, 22 October 2010 post, above. I'd post a diff about my having posted the diffs, but I'm worried about the philosophical (not to mention the quantum dynamical) ramifications of that.

@ Founders intent: the context here is that Barrett and QuackWatch are commonly used as 'opposition' voices on fringe and pseudoscience articles, and skepticism-oriented editors are worried that any lessening of the authoritative status of the two will have repercussions across a wide range of pages. That's a non-issue from my perspective - if Barrett actually has been over-represented on a number of pages then all those pages ought to be revised (per NPOV) to place him in proper balance - but I can see how that might encourage some editors to go to fairly extensive ends to maintain that status. --Ludwigs2 18:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Your point is well taken, and of course none of us need reminding that WP doesn't play favorites. My point is a bit different than yours but somewhat related. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 18:08, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

"if Barrett actually has been over-represented on a number of pages" Actually, the reverse has happened. The ArbCom above has been used as an excuse to remove the vast majority of citations to Quackwatch. It got so bad that the ArbCom was amended to help resolve the problem here. --Ronz (talk) 18:16, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The "When editors cite detractors, they've gone over the line." claim floored me. By this logic we can't say anything bad about Jack T. Chick anywhere on wikipedia even if it is coming from a peer reviewed publication like Religion and American Culture because Chick is still amount the living and the counterpoint is by a "detractor". The same goes for John T. Reed regarding Robert Kiyosaki. Heck it could be applied to any "detractor" of any living person. Does with make any degree of sense? Is this even sane?!? I seriously doubt that kind of insanity is what WP:BLP had in mind but that would be the logical end of such an argument--we can't say anything bad no matter how well sourced about a living person because if they are saying something bad they are a detractor.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:32, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the misunderstanding. This is not my meaning, nor intent. There's consensus that these specific detractors fail both WP:RS and BLP. I shouldn't be generalizing. --Ronz (talk) 19:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh so you are saying the word of Earnest A. Hooton of Harvard University which in part states "A quantity of excellent evidence has been amassed which indicates that dental caries is, to a great extent, connected with malnutrition and with deficient diets." is not reliable because it conflictd with Barrett's current claim of "he ignored the fact that malnourished people don't usually get many cavities." even though it appears as the forward in Price's own book published by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers and that Price's statement in a 1923 book called Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic ("since 1870 the average length of life has been increased by fifteen years, that marked reduction has occurred during this period in infant mortality and in mortality due to tuberculosis, typhoid, smallpox and many other diseases.") which is cited in said book published by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers is also not reliable because it conflicts with Barrett's claim of "While extolling their health, he ignored their short life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality, endemic diseases, and malnutrition." This was covered in Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Is_a_paper_.28possible_blog.29_by_a_psychiatrist_valid_regarding_old_claims_regarding_dentistry.3F and the majority felt as I did that as far as a biography on Weston Price was concerned Barrett did NOT meet WP:RS requirements and since the it was asked if the source was valid it required a consensus to show it did meet WP:RS.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:54, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying that. How about we stick to what editors are actually claiming? --Ronz (talk) 21:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Thankfully we are sticking to the topic at hand. Okay how about if you kindly produce the evidence of this that "these specific detractors fail both WP:RS and BLP"? Let's see why these sources are not worthy? I think we all need to see why these source fail BLP. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 21:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

See the Arbcomm as a start, already linked twice. --Ronz (talk) 21:44, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The first link is to a user thought to be in legal conflict with Barrett coupled with him making implied legal threats against editors of wikipedia--a major no-no. It looks like the activity stopped before anything actually was done (of if there was something done the link isn't there)

The second link says Motion 1) "The use of Quackwatch as a source is not banned; however, all editors are reminded of the instruction in the policy page on Neutral point of view that they should "give precedence to those sources that have been the most successful in presenting facts in an equally balanced manner", that Quackwatch is a site "whose purpose is to combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies, and misconduct", and is therefore explicitly not giving a balanced presentation."--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Once again, this is off topic. --Ronz (talk) 01:39, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

This is what I was referring to. --Ronz (talk) 01:48, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

That says "Organizations and individuals that are widely acknowledged as extremist and is part of WP:SPS that was brought by me in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Is a paper .28possible blog.29 by a psychiatrist valid regarding old claims regardin dentistry.3F: I should point out that WP:SPS is quite explicit regarding the use of such self-published sources as Barrett: In some circumstances, self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications"(sic). (next paragraph) The biggest problem is the lack of reference to all of Barrett's nutritional claims regarding Price's research. If there is one thing I still remember from my research days is that is better to overcite claim then to undercite but in this section there is nothing. So where are these claims coming from?

User:The Founders Intent has already asked for proof that the references meet the "widely acknowledged as extremist" criteria and so far we have seen nothing.

Also Barrett's logic process at times make you go "huh?" when you do further research. For example, take his otherwise good Take his Be Wary of Acupuncture, Qigong, and "Chinese Medicine" which says under "Questionable Standards" that "Today some states restrict the practice of acupuncture to physicians or others operating under their direct supervision. In about 20 states, people who lack medical training can perform acupuncture without medical supervision. The FDA now classifies acupuncture needles as Class II medical devices and requires labeling for one-time use by practitioners who are legally authorized to use them [17]. Acupuncture is not covered under Medicare." Ok, but "Some of the items and services that Medicare doesn’t cover include the following: Long-term care See pages 110–112., Routine dental care, Dentures, Cosmetic surgery, Acupuncture, Hearing aids, exams for fitting hearing aids. To find out if Medicare covers a service you need, visit www.medicare.gov/coverage. Call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) for general coverage information. TTY users should call 1-877-486-2048." Medicare and you. This statement in the context of the paragraph is a Non sequitur (logic) because last time I checked Routine dental care, Dentures, Hearing aids, and exams for fitting hearing aids were about as mainstream medicine as you could get and yet Medicare doesn't cover those either. Why is that sentence even there in a section on Questionable Standards?!?

Finally the Barrett_v._Rosenthal ruling linked to above was handed down March 27, 2007 while Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_1#Stephen_Barrett (May 29, 2007), Talk:Stephen_Barrett/Archive_9#copied_from_Ronz.27_talk_page (April 10, 2007, Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive19#Stephen_Barrett (June 12, 2007) all came AFTER it. These clearly show that such sources can be and have been provided on the talk pages to establish points without violating WP:BLP--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Mostly off topic. I guess that's an improvement. Once again, this is the BLP Noticeboard. Please keep your comments concise and on topic. --Ronz (talk) 15:01, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

That was not a helpful comment. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 14:51, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

A simple search of the Stephen_Barrett talk page will provide plenty more proof. --Ronz (talk) 14:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

You got to love the implication that an archive of this noticeboard (Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive19#Stephen_Barrett) is not on topic...for this noticeboard.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:59, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, sources can be discussed. The sources were found to fail RS and BLP.

So, why are these sources that fail RS and BLP being used to make ad-hominem attacks on Barrett? This violates BLP in multiple ways, multiple times. The sources are improper, and used for multiple attacks. Why do editors think it's proper to keep such violations in a discussion? The discussions on the Quackwatch reference are huge, so the claim that discussion is being prevented is absolutely absurd. --Ronz (talk) 01:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

While we are at it let's talk about Ronz's WP:OR and WP:BATTLE claim when I asked "If Weston Price's theories regarding nutrition and tooth decay where wrong then where are the papers refuting those theories?" then. What sources outside focal infection does Barrett use to show his claims regarding Price's research are not just his personal opinion? Also why is Ronz also going after User talk:The Founders Intent, User_talk:Griswaldo, and User_talk:Hans_Adler when they disagree with him regarding Barrett? I am starting to see a pattern here and it is not one I should be seeing.--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:37, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

This is the BLP Noticeboard. Please stick to the topic at hand. --Ronz (talk) 21:44, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

So anything goes when discussing sources?

The sources fail BLP, their use fails BLP. Editors aren't justifying their use, nor their behavior. Because they were attacking Barrett in a discussion about him as a source, we ignore BLP? That's the only conclusion I can make from the discussion so far. Hopefully the editors involved have a better explanation. Perhaps one is coming? --Ronz (talk) 14:19, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not the intent, to show that anything goes. The intent is to be able to have an uncensored discussion about a source for an article. That this source happens to be living should be of little concern, as long as we don't become inflammatory. But we must be allowed to have open discussions just like for any other source. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 14:47, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

We don't have uncensored discussions about living people, BLP applies, please keep the comments a bit cleaner and so as not to appear derogatory or demeaning the living subject. Basically if you can't WP:RS it, then don't say it. Off2riorob (talk) 14:50, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe that was a bit strong. I didn't mean a discussion that lacked all control, and I think that was clear. I think we should be able to have a fair discussion about a source to make sure it meets reliability criteria. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 15:09, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem here, Ronz, is that you have decided that anything which doesn't present Barrett as a model of scientific good sense and propriety must by definition be a personal attack. That's hardly the case. nothing being said about Barrett in these discussion constitues an unwarrented personal attack (no one is calling him names, no one is implying he's broken the law or violated the conventions of normal human decency). All we are discussing is whether Barrett lives up to the expectations of objectivity and scientific rigor that we would that we need to consider to determine whether or not he is a reliable source. What is it precisely that you consider so offensive about the passage you keep trying to delete? --Ludwigs2 03:25, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. Please follow WP:CIVIL, WP:TALK, and keep to the topic of BLP please. --Ronz (talk) 03:35, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Again, you have not specified what in particular in this passage constitutes a BLP violation, so I don't see why this should be removed. let's take it point by point:

1. "If the online reports regarding the (...) cases are totally factual in their details Barrett has serious credibility problems--possibly enough to discredit him as a WP:RS." - reasonable discussion to evaluate a source, yes?
2. "The Quackbuster, Stephen Barrett, MD, loses appeal and leaves home town article claims that at the time of writing Barrett had not won a single lawsuit that went to trial." - a sourced claim about Barrett; if the source is good there is no BLP issue, if it isn't, then there's a sourcing issue but not a BLP issue.
3. "Furthermore how on earth do you lose a case regarding saying homeopathy is quackery? That should have been a slam dunk for an actual expert." - snide, yes; BLP violation, doubtful. the very issue under debate is whether Barrett is an expert, so an editor calling Barrett's expertise into question is hardly unexpected.

So, where is the BLP issue here? Am I misunderstanding something? because I don't see one. --Ludwigs2 04:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

You probably didn't notice it amidst everything else [6]

Of course, I did write (16:07, 22 Oct), where it's extremely hard to miss, "On 21 Oct, BruceGrubb (talk · contribs) attacked Barrett directly, referencing attacks by Barrett's detractors at RSN, which was duplicated in part four hours later at FSN." And (17:02, 22 Oct), "Still, citing these specific detractors ... goes over the line with BLP, not to mention the irony when done at RSN." And (14:19, 23 Oct) "they were attacking Barrett." --Ronz (talk) 04:26, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I actually did miss the first comment, and I think I saw at least some of the others, but dismissed them as bombast. Sorry. However, I will point out that you've got a bit of a snowball clause issue here. These sources (which may or may not be reliable for talk page discussions on this particular topic) are pointing to a court case which is certainly reliable and a matter of public record. Bruce (or any of us) could - with sufficient effort - recover the pertinent judgement that Barrett was not qualified as an expert, which would be a perfectly legitimate source to use on wikipedia even in article space (just as a court case is used on the Intelligent Design article to specify that ID is pseudoscience). I don't think you doubt that the court case occurred, I don't think you doubt the the judgement was as given, I don't think you doubt that we could retrieve better sources for the same material, and do I think we both agree that better sources would be required if we were going to use this court case in an article. But this is a talk page, and requiring other editors to jump through hoops to get to a forgone result that isn't even going to appear in mainspace is a good bit on the dark side of wp:NOTBUREAUCRACY. Or do you believe that this court case didn't occur?

I mean, frankly, if a judge saw fit to dismiss Barrett's libel case, I can't see that we are in any moral or legal danger by discussing the same issue. You might have cause to throw these sources out as unreliable (if this were mainspace), but I still don't see how you have a BLP issue here — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ludwigs2 (talk • contribs) 07:17, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Ronz, Ludwigs2 like The Founders Intent, is asking for proof. As I have pointed out before Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_1#Stephen_Barrett (May 29, 2007), Talk:Stephen_Barrett/Archive_9#copied_from_Ronz.27_talk_page (April 10, 2007, Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive19#Stephen_Barrett (June 12, 2007) all use similar links. All we have seen to date is rhetoric with WP:CIVIL, WP:TALK and claims of being off topic. User:Off2riorob thinks you are being oversensitive; Hans Adler implied Barrett didn't reevaluate Price's studies by modern standards with no sources what so ever and you are not even touching his comments (Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Is_a_paper_.28possible_blog.29_by_a_psychiatrist_valid_regarding_old_claims_regarding_dentistry.3F), Ludwigs2 doesn't see BLP issues, The Founder Intent doesn't see any, Griswaldo doesn't see any; nobody seems to see this but you.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:13, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

You are arguing the primary case, taking up cudgels against Barrett on behalf of a person or theory that Barrett has criticised. Don't do that. Barrett is widely cited outside of Wikipedia as a prominent sceptic, every view presented by sceptics will have one or more usually entuirely non-notable critics in the True Believer camp. It's not our job to "balance" a sceptical presentation of the scientific mainstream with quote-mining from supporters of oddball views. We don't need to, the reader knows who Barrett is and can easily interpret things in context. Guy (Help!) 12:37, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

How does that address the WP:BLP question pertinent to the discussion here, at the BLP/N? There are several other discussions at Talk:Weston Price, the RS/N and the FT/N where this response might be more appropriate. I would like to note however that the response appears to confuse the situation at hand with some other situation. Weston Price is not a critic of Barrett from some "true Believer camp", he is a long deceased historical figure whose theories were fairly mainstream in his lifetime but have been resurrected more recently within a medical context that has long since moved on from them. Barrett wrote a historical hit piece on Weston Price in order to make his fringey contemporary fans look bad, but in doing so completely botched the job. At later stages in our discussions about the reliability of Barrett in the specific areas of expertise involved here, Bruce brought forth some links to articles written by people who might be current critics of Barrett, and suggest that if the information in these sources is accurate Barrett's reliability is even more questionable. User:Ronz, as he apparently always does when Barrett is criticized in any way, claimed that Bruce's post was a BLP violation and has been trying to delete it ever since. But let's be clear here. Neither Bruce, nor anyone else, is making a primary argument to defend contemporary detractors of Barrett. Either way, this line of discussion appears to be more applicable to the reliability issue than the BLP issue. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 14:53, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

"How does that address the WP:BLP question pertinent to the discussion here, at the BLP/N?" By answering: Do not attack the subject of BLPs with unreliable sources, and don't take up the attacks made by such sources. --Ronz (talk) 15:25, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

"User:Ronz, as he apparently always does when Barrett is criticized in any way" Except for the majority of the time, when I simply notify involved editors that I think that BLP is being violated, and take no other action other than to explain further. Like the majority of the situatio we're discussing here. --Ronz (talk) 15:28, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Ronz the only thing I said that you apparently always do is to claim that there is a BLP violation. If you reread my post you'll see that grammatically it can't mean what you think it meant.Griswaldo (talk) 15:53, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry that I commented on your assumptions. I should have ignored them outright.

How about addressing the BLP issues? --Ronz (talk) 16:06, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I thought I just did that - did you miss my post? --Ludwigs2 18:52, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

My comment was made to Griswaldo. I hope that's clear by the context and indentation.

It would be very helpful for involved editors to address BLP directly, and the comments my uninvolved editors at (12:37, 24 Oct) and (14:50, 23 Oct). --Ronz (talk) 19:05, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that would be helpful. and yet, when I do address the BLP claim directly (as I did above) you don't see fit to respond to it, even to the point of telling me that you were responding to a sub-point by a different editor rather than to the main point that I made. So what's up with that?

I'll take it that you found my argument convincing, and consequently choose not to respond to it because you might have to admit that I'm right. do you think that's a fair assessment of the situation? --Ludwigs2 20:25, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the uninvolved editors. --Ronz (talk) 21:12, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

And who would that be, exactly, since almost everyone here agrees with me? You're still trying to evade the reasoned argument, Ronz. --Ludwigs2 20:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

This is not a vote. I was referring to the comments by "uninvolved editors at (12:37, 24 Oct) and (14:50, 23 Oct)." I see no argument based upon WP:CON and WP:TALK from Ludwigs2, and have done my best to work with him to get around this problem at his talk, to no effect. --Ronz (talk) 20:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, you mean Off2rioRob and guy. O2rr is not really on point for what you're trying to claim, but yes, Guy agrees with your perspective. however, none of the three of you have actually responded to the argument I made 07:17, 24 Oct, and until you do I have to assume that my analysis there is correct. do you have a response to that?

and with respect to the whole have done my best to work with him approach... interesting. I'm curious to see how this tactic works out for you. you realize, of course, that your (now) numerous protestations that you're trying to work with me obligate you to accept if I offer a reasonable compromise, right? --Ludwigs2 21:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:BLPTALK

Then we can mark this resolved because uninvolved editors have all pointed out to you that there is no BLP concern here. They have pointed out that discussions of sources on talk pages and noticeboards require much more leeway than content edits to entries about living subjects. Besides this no uninvolved editors have identified a single BLP concern here. So as you say, this is resolved and there is no BLP concern. Please restore all deleted talk page text per WP:TALK. If you do not do so you are simply continuing the disruption you started when you deleted them.Griswaldo (talk) 12:20, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

This does not summarize the statements of the three uninvolved editors at all. See WP:CON and WP:TALK

Only two editors total have commented on what leeway we give to discussions in talk pages. They indicate that the comments copied above fail BLP.--Ronz (talk) 14:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

No they don't "indicate that they fail BLP". Please explain yourself here and preferably by quoting the outside opinions, and do not turn this back on me because I'm the one saying there is an absence of such statements and I can't prove a negative. Let's see it Ronz. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 15:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I find this approach to be the most logical when considering WP policy. While articles themselves are the ultimate expression on a subject matter at WP, talk pages, noticeboards and other such spaces are working areas where content is hashed out. These should be more liberal to working out policy and content differences. Therefore it is logical to apply WP:BLP differently in articles than in "working" spaces/pages in order to achieve the highest quality NPOV article content. An over application of rules and policies in workspaces will likely lead to WP:IARM in order to restore a reasonable balance. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 13:03, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course more leeway doesn't mean we can disparage sources in these venues. It simply means that if people are discussing the credibility and reliability of the sources in good faith and that discussion makes the source look bad then we should not be applying BLP to stifle the discussion. Editors should always be sensitive to living subjects and the language they choose to describe those subjects and the activities of those subjects.Griswaldo (talk) 13:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Let me reiterate that we have said THIS ALL ALONG that no argument to support the disparaging of a LP has EVER been put forth; none whatsoever. We never made such an argument and never will. Let us not overemphasize this point because it has always been self-evident per WP:AGF. The point is we MUST have the leeway to properly discuss all subject matter in the intended "work spaces" in order to achieve WP's intended purpose. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 13:52, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

(removing indent)Considering the "The Weston A. Price Foundation" section on the Weston Price article also contains a link to a Weston A Price Foundation article that uses what can at best be described unflattering language regarding Stephen Barrett in the first paragraph we should be seeing the same WP:BLP claims on that unreferenced derogatory stuff and yet we don't.

As seen on the Talk:Weston_Price page Ronz has claimed that "This just appears to confirm my concerns. Again, this is not a place for original research in order to respond to criticisms, attack critics, etc. Repeatedly referring to Barrett as a psychiatrist borders on WP:BLP as well." which he repeated even after it was pointed that this is how Stephen Barrett, M.D.'s Biographical Sketch on quackwatch.com itself describes him! Claiming a piece of information that is on the very website that a person runs is a borderline WP:BLP is IMHO at best sloppy research if not insane. WP:BLP is not a magical Censorship hammer for any point that an editor disagrees with but that seems to be the way it is being used in this case.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

"Considering the..." Yes, other problems exist. It's no excuse for creating more problems. Please stick to the subject. The examples you give clearly demonstrate that censorship is not occurring, otherwise the problematic comments and references would have been removed. --Ronz (talk) 19:18, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not involved in the article. I'll point out that our policy at WP:BLPTALK says:

"Non-article space

"Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related to making content choices, should be removed, deleted, or oversighted as appropriate. When seeking advice about whether to publish something about a living person, be careful not to post so much information on the talk page that the inquiry becomes moot. The same principle applies to problematic images. Questionable claims already discussed can be removed with a reference to the previous discussion.

"The BLP policy also applies to user and user talk pages. The single exception is that users may make any claim they wish about themselves in their user space, so long as they are not engaged in impersonation, and subject to What Wikipedia is not, though minors are discouraged from disclosing identifying personal information on their userpages; for more information, see here.[6] Although this policy applies to posts about Wikipedians in project space, some leeway is permitted to allow the handling of administrative issues by the community, but administrators may delete such material if it rises to the level of defamation, or if it constitutes a violation of No personal attacks."

My comments: The word leeway is not used in relationship to article talk pages. I can't find any suggestion at WP:BLP about more leeway on article talk pages, let alone "much more leeway". Obviously the first para above suggests some information can be posted on the talk page, but not, for instance, that you can move a BLP violation from the article to the talk page for discussion. Dougweller (talk) 14:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Doug, the key here is "...and not related to making content choices". It doesn't say "or" but "and". I might be reading this more liberally than you are but if editors are discussing content changes in good faith and not going out of their way to slander or defame someone I'm taking this to mean there is more leeway on the talk page. Something that is questionable should be removed from article space, but if it hasn't been clearly deemed a violation it's status as such can (and is all the time) be discussed on talk and on relevant noticeboards. That's more leeway if you ask me, whether or not the exact language on the policy page uses the term "leeway". However, the more important question here is whether or not Bruce's text is a BLP violation, in which case we can keep it removed from talk pages or ask him to refactor it to remove the violations. Can you please weigh in on that issue. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 15:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I see what you mean but that has to be read in the context of "When seeking advice about whether to publish something about a living person, be careful not to post so much information on the talk page that the inquiry becomes moot." Which is why I wrote you shouldn't just copy the whole material to the talk page. I'll come back to the text itself if I have a chance. Dougweller (talk) 15:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd emphasize the purpose of BLP, to ensure material is not defamatory or libelous, regardless of where it is within Wikipedia. --Ronz (talk) 15:48, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The basic comments that you deleted (way up at the top) seem acceptable, as we have to be able to discuss the reliability of sources and that will mean making restrained, considered negative comments. Any links need to be clearly reliable sources - calm considered comments with links that are the opposite might well be a BLP violation. Dougweller (talk) 15:54, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see "restrained, considered" comments. I see ad-hominem and straw man attacks (in the context of Ad nauseam discussions where editors had already been cautioned about BLP). It's bad enough that the comments have absolutely no bearing on the discussions at hand, that logical fallacies are being used to promote a viewpoint. It's also defamatory, and so a BLP violation. --Ronz (talk) 16:05, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Ronz, you are the only person who has warned anyone about BLP here. You warned him and then you deleted the comments. No one seems to agree with your assessment. You can't just repeat yourself ad nasuem and expect that this will turn into a BLP violation. In the future I suggest you ask someone else to look into supposed BLP violations when it comes to Stephen Barrett because you have a track record of over reacting, according to those who apparently have encountered this before. A BLP warning from someone else might convince others that its not just a product of this sensitivity.Griswaldo (talk) 16:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Please keep comments on topic, follow WP:CON and WP:TALK.

I've stated why I believe BLP was violated. I'm happy to clarify (hint). I'm happy to respond to different interpretations of BLP (hint). --Ronz (talk) 16:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

And I and other have refuted your statement as nauseum, yet you continue to state it. why is that? --Ludwigs2 20:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Despite all this discussion, it's unclear that whether or not the involved editors, other than myself, think the copied material above (below 18:01, 22 Oct) would be considered a BLP violation under any circumstances, such as on the Barrett talk page.

Also, I'm still not sure if editors are claiming Noticeboards are somehow different that talk pages. --Ronz (talk) 15:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Ronz, it's fairly clear that no one in this discussion (aside from you) thinks of this as a BLP issue. poor sourcing? almost certainly, but not BLP. You really have given no credible reason why this should be considered BLP (you've argued that the sources are bad, but you haven't claimed that the information itself is untrue and explicitly used for the purpose of defamation). make a credible BLP argument, or let it go. --Ludwigs2 20:33, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad we agree that it's poorly sourced. We then agree that it would be a BLP violation if added to the article on Barrett. Maybe even when added to Barrett's talk page? After all, "Contentious material about living persons 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."

I'm sorry that I wasn't more clear. The sources are defamatory. They are being used for defamation. They are being used to support further defamation. --Ronz (talk) 20:45, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry I misunderstood. in what sense are the defamatory, and being used to defame? can you explain this in more detail? --Ludwigs2 21:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

So we agree BLP would be violated if the same information were added to Barrett's article or talk page? --Ronz (talk) 21:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I believe that I asked you to clarify the sense in which the sources are defamatory and/or used for defamation. I currently believe they are not (though as noted I doubt they are normally usable in article space), but I'm willing to listen to reason on the matter. once you've explained to me why you think they are defamatory, then I'll tell you what I think about using them on Barrett's page. --Ludwigs2 22:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:LIBEL talk

The comments and sources fail WP:Libel. --Ronz (talk) 22:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you'll need to be more specific: how do they fail wp:Libel? Libel generally implies that the statements made are explicitly false statements specifically intended to damage a person's reputation, yet none of these sources seem to be making false statements, and their aim does not appear to be to damage Barrett's reputation explicitly (though they are not, perhaps, the friendliest statements that have come down the block). can you explain what I'm not seeing? --Ludwigs2 22:46, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the definitions linked from WP:Libel rather than yours. --Ronz (talk) 22:55, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm just paraphrasing what they said, so I don't understand your objection. let me try to make my question clearer. what specifically about these sources do you consider to be a violation of wp:Libel? I expect specific quotes or clear arguments to make your case. vaguely pointing at wp:Libel is not a sufficient argument; you are actually being requested to show due cause. If you choose not to respond to this question, or if you respond with another vague policy link, or any other non-responsive answer, then I will close and archive this entire discussion, marked 'resolved as an unfounded claim'. --Ludwigs2 00:01, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Follow WP:CON and WP:TALK if you want your comments to be considered. --Ronz (talk) 00:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Answer the questions rather than continually throwing up WP:OR, WP:TALK, and now WP:CON claims.--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, given the serious nature of libel, we must be precise in identifying the sources of concern, and the exact nature of their violation of WP:LIBEL. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 00:45, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

The sources are identified. They fail WP:BLP. --Ronz (talk) 00:57, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

But you said they fail WP:LIBEL, that's what we're asking about specifically now. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 01:01, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

If they fail BLP, there's no need to go further that I'm aware. I believe WP:LIBEL is clear enough with its linked definitions. Further response on your talk. --Ronz (talk) 01:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

They have not been shown to fail WP:BLP or WP:LIBEL. You're still the only person arguing this. I'm tempted to mark this as resolved "No BLP violation" here since you refuse even to explain exactly why either WP:BLP or WP:LIBEL apply here. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 11:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

So what is the threshold for closing this discussion? If you're seeking permission from the other side, I don't think you'll get it. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 14:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I've alredy set a threshold for closing this discussion, at the end of the last section. I'm giving Ronz just a little more time to show specific due cause for having opened this discussion in the first place, and if he can't or doesn't, I'm closing it. the Baffle them with Bullshit approach he's using now only goes so far. --Ludwigs2 14:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

If WP:LIBEL wasn't essential, then why bring it up? I'm just trying to learn here. You must have thought it important. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 01:24, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Georgia defamation law

Not relevant to this discussion

I would like to mention that in some localities Defamation also applies to the dead. As John Stratton Hawley of Barnard College, Columbia University points out the state of Georgia under Georgia Law 16-11-40 has such a clause. The exact wording of that statue is as follows: "A person commits the offense of criminal defamation when, without a privilege to do so and with intent to defame another, living or dead, he communicates false matter which tends to blacken the memory of one who is dead or which exposes one who is alive to hatred, contempt, or ridicule, and which tends to provoke a breach of the peace." So just because someone is dead like Weston Price doesn't mean it is open season on them even in the US.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:33, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom request for clarification

likely to be denied

I've gone ahead and requested a clarification from ArbCom on the problem of skeptical sources under the Pseudoscience decision. you can see the request and add comments [[7]]. I've only listed myself and ScienceApoligist as participants, since the main discussion on the other thread was between he and I, but you can feel free to cast yourself as a participant or not as you choose. --Ludwigs2 22:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC) Oh joy, another place for us to keep track of this on (whimpers)--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC) lol - I live to serve. or do I lerv to sieve? hmmm... --Ludwigs2 00:07, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Isn't there another noticeboard we could start a thread on? --THE FOUNDERS INTENT PRAISE GOOD WORKS 01:23, 23 October 2010 (UTC) In all seriousness that is not a good idea per Wikipedia:Canvassing and Wikipedia:Wikilawyering which it could be argued this subject may already have problems regarding.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:38, 23 October 2010 (UTC) Sorry, should have made it clear that it was meant in humorous sarcasm. It's been place on too many boards for my liking. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT PRAISE GOOD WORKS 14:23, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Removal of potential BLP-violating material in discussion related to making content choices

I've gone ahead and removed it once again. If editors aren't even going to justify themselves, I'm for erring on the side of caution. --Ronz (talk) 01:05, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

And I've put it back. see my note above. --Ludwigs2 03:25, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

No justification, again. --Ronz (talk) 03:36, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Stuck

I've marked this discussion as stuck. Editors are unable to follow the noticeboard guidelines, WP:CON, and WP:TALK. If anyone wants to discuss my part in any of this, I'm happy to do so on my talk page where any disruption will simply be removed. I'd like to work out the implications of "and not related to making content choices" before proposing changes to WP:BLP to clarify it. --Ronz (talk) 14:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't matter because you have 0 support for the idea that there is a BLP violation of any kind here. Stop the wikilawyering and let it go. And please do not add the tags back.Griswaldo (talk) 15:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I see no consensus, very little work to create consensus, and a huge effort to disrupt consensus-making. I commend Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, Off2riorob, Guy, and Dougweller for their contributions here. In an attempt to move on, I'm willing to discuss my part and relevant policies/guidelines on my talk page. --Ronz (talk) 16:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Please undo the deletions of other people's talk page comments per WP:TALK since you see no consensus for your claims of BLP violations. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 16:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'm closing this debate as resolved. there is no evidence whatsoever presented of any BLP violation. --Ludwigs2 16:39, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Since there is no BLP violation all material will be restored.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Three editors disagree. WP:BLP is unclear on the extent we should give you leeway.

If you don't mind some suggestions: Regarding your comment at the heart of this dispute [8], I think it would help if you commented on why you referred to the sources that you did, why you made the comments you made, and how you feel they meet WP:BLP. --Ronz (talk) 23:16, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I think enough has been said here. This BLP horse is dead. Bruce, I think you ought to go ahead and button this thing up. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 00:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Discouraging editors from consensus-building and dispute resolution is of no help. --Ronz (talk) 00:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Spare me, Ronz. No doubt we can measure this thread by the foot now. The rest of us are satisfied there is no issue; you are not. Well nothing is perfect. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 00:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome to your opinion. Please don't discourage others from giving theirs. --Ronz (talk) 00:56, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

These points were explained by in my 11:14, 23 October 2010 post which got the "Once again, this is the BLP Noticeboard. Please keep your comments concise and on topic" song and dance dismissal. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz already has pointed to the and not related to making content choices part of WP:BLP proper and the WP:BLPTALK subtopic that shows that "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced" can be used and the three links I provided shows that similar links had been used with WP:BLP not really being a issue.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:28, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. --Ronz (talk) 16:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

BLP itself is unclear on what is and is not appropriate in such matters. In that case I'll defer to the consensus that BruceGrubb's comments to FTN and RSN shouldn't have been removed.

I'm withdrawing from further participation here. --Ronz (talk) 16:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Then I would say, Bruce, that there is no issue here and you can button up this thread. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 16:29, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

See WP:BLPTALK:

"Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related to making content choices, should be removed, deleted, or oversighted as appropriate. When seeking advice about whether to publish something about a living person, be careful not to post so much information on the talk page that the inquiry becomes moot. The same principle applies to problematic images. Questionable claims already discussed can be removed with a reference to the previous discussion."

See Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#How to use article talk pages:

• "Be positive: Article talk pages should be used to discuss ways to improve an article; not to criticize, pick apart, or vent about the current status of an article or its subject. This is especially true on the talk pages of biographies of living people. However, if you feel something is wrong, but are not sure how to fix it, then by all means feel free to draw attention to this and ask for suggestions from others."

Note: Adding BLP violations is serious matter. Continuing to add the LIBELS comments must stop. The unreliable references are not appropriate for discussion. Since there is BLP violations all material must be deleted. Editors who insist on keeping the BLP violations can be blocked to protect the project from the BLP violations. The unreliable references can't be used for any article so there is no point to LIBEL someone with unreliable references. Editors should be more carful in the future to respect Wikipedia's BLP or they can be kindly asked to leave the project. "Questionable claims already discussed can be removed with a reference to the previous discussion." So there is indeed BLP violations. QuackGuru (talk) 17:05, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Please provide evidence of libel. Others don't see any. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Ronz could not answer the question of libel (which he himself brought up). I hope QG has a better response. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE _{GOOD WORKS} 22:52, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Ronz did answer the question of libel. I hope you will repond to my comments directly. I think there is evidence that the sources or text met the definition of libel. Editors who are doing the libel often deny it is not libel is not a new phenomenon. Let me ask a question to see if we understand each other. I think BLP is clear enough for this particular situation. We could request clarification to help resolve future BLP issues like this. But let's start with this question first. If an editor posted an unreliable source with "questionable claims" or added poorly sourced "contentious material" that is not (currently) being used to improve an article libel in any sense of the word? QuackGuru (talk) 06:37, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

title and content of an article related to Aristotelis Goumas

Editors are cautioned not to poke the editors involved here, lest they find themselves subject to the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia sanctions. Let's have a calm civil discussion of this as an ordinary BLP matter. Uncle G (talk) 20:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• Murder of Aristotelis Goumas (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Death of Aristotelis Goumas (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Killing of Aristotelis Goumas (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Athenean, who some weeks ago received a warning for topic ban on Albanian-Greek topics User talk:Athenean#AE, again started an article titled Murder of Aristotelis Goumas about the death of a Greek person who was killed in an incident by some Albanians. There is an official ongoing investigation and a pending trial that will decide whether this was a traffic collission or something else but this user tries to defame the people involved as murderers, which is totally unacceptable against the BLP rules. The article was moved to the neutral Death of Aristotelis Goumas but he decided to continue the defamation campaign [9]. The whole purpose of the article seems to be to label some Albanians as murderers although no one has been sentenced as murderer and in fact the trial hasn't even begun. Admins your intervention seems to be the only way to stop this defamation campaign, targeting and labeling people who haven't been sentenced about anything as murderers.--Kushtrim123 (talk) 18:37, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• You have not notified Athenean about this request, as you are required to do (see this page's edit notice). Please do so at once.  Sandstein  18:49, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I notified him [10] --Kushtrim123 (talk) 18:56, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
• The Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard exists for this, you know. Uncle G (talk) 19:01, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes. I'm not convinced this is an issue of misconduct that immediately calls for admin intervention/sanctions. There is a BLP-related content issue, which should be hacked out in the relevant venues. That said, I'm far from happy about seeing the usual ethnic factions lining up to instrumentalize this case for their on-wiki agendas (this goes for both the authors of the article and its detractors), but now the article is here we'll probably have to live with it. Small content suggestion: would "killing of" be acceptable? Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:07, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
    • I've IAR deleted the article; any other admin is welcome to restore it. Looks sufficiently problematic to me. Black Kite (t) (c) 19:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
• (edit conflict)I agree with the deletion, since it had the problem of the title(Death vs. Murder and all the assumptions and conclusions that derive from those) Kushtrim123 noted and mainly the fact that it fails WP:EFFECT and WP:INDEPTH, traffic collissions happen every day and those which have many victims are definitely reported more by the media than this one, but we can't write articles on every such event. It's just an event like all other events that the media cover and then it is completely forgotten. Regarding reverse situations there are many more confirmed even reported by the Helsinki Com.[11], but I think Albanian editors don't write similar articles mainly because they understand that such articles Death/Murder/Killing of X (of Y ethnicity) serve only the aggravation of ethnic tensions and aren't encyclopedic but just create new ethnic battlegrounds.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 19:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
• Isn't wholesale deletion rather drastic? I am perfectly willing to make any edits necessary to alleviate the BLP problems. I don't have too much experience with BLP issues, but I am all ears. I should note though, that every statement in there is sourced verbatim from reliable sources. It's not like I made anything up or changed the wording. The event itself is notable: It was covered by all major news outlets in Greece when it happened. If it supposedly fails WP:EFFECT and WP:INDEPTH, that should be addressed via an AfD, not like this. Athenean (talk) 19:20, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
• @Zjarri: isn't this a violation of your interaction ban with Athenean? could you be kind enough and remove your comments? Agree with Fut. in this case.Alexikoua (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • No poking, please. Uncle G (talk) 19:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)Thanks Uncle G and no my comment isn't a violation of any kind. Interactions bans are about reverts, comments on talkpages and userpages and comments about users not comments about articles.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 19:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

---

Before discussion proceeds further, I'd just like to remind both of the above editors to tread very lightly here. AN/I discussions are prone to becoming either heated or trailing off into two-parties. BLP/N really was the better place for this, not least because it has a lengthier period before automatic archival, allowing for more measured discussion. (It also has, of course, the attention of people who focus upon BLP issues.) Don't let the nature of discussion here set off the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia alarms. In fact, if everyone agrees, I'm happy to move this over to BLP/N, where everyone can talk about "death of X" versus "killing of X" versus "murder of X" — a subject that BLP regulars have dealt with on occasion before — as well as the finer points of the Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not policy with respect to such events. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 19:46, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• Uncle G's proposal is fine by me. Athenean (talk) 19:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

---

Right. We're now here at BLP/N. For those unable to see the deleted edits, the initial dispute here, that occurred both with the content of the article and the title of the article, was the appropriate terminology and title to use for such an article. Uncle G (talk) 20:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

When I wrote the article, I just followed what the sources said. It did not occur to me that there might be BLP issues, as I do not have a whole lot of experience with BLP and current events-related articles. I am however, perfectly willing to follow all and any advice and concerns from the community. The way I see it, this event is notable, as it received coverage by all the major media in Greece, and even some outside (e.g. Balkan Chronicle). If there are notability concerns, those can be discussed at an AfD, but wholesale deletion seems a bit drastic at this point. Athenean (talk) 20:08, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• The issue is one of the connotations of the word "murder". This is a regular, and to some extent quite ordinary (inasmuch as it can be ordinary at all), BLP issue. To call something murder is to imply murderers, which of course living people are not until they have been convicted of that crime. But, in tension opposing this, is of course the fact that something can be declared a murder and investigated as such — i.e. it's definitely a murder by someone but no-one has been convicted of it, yet. We have the much same issue with "X crime family" articles and "Y Z (criminal)" disambiguators. It's not in the spirit of the BLP policy to portray people as guilty of a crime when they haven't (yet) been convicted. Uncle G (talk) 20:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I see. Now that the situation has been properly explained to me (i.e. not brusquely moving the article without explanation), I have no objections to "Death of Aristotelis Goumas". Athenean (talk) 20:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
• Just because there is coverage in the news does not mean that it belongs in an encyclopedia WP:NOTNEWS. Active Banana (^bananaphone 20:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I'm skeptical about the notability too, NOTNEWS-wise. It's a very recent case and may remain just sad news of the day. I also agree with Uncle G that "murder" is too specific in the absence of an actual conviction of that specific crime. If we need to have the article, "killing of" would work for me (apparently all sources agree it was a violent act rather than, say, an accident.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:01, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • (ec)Regarding notability, wouldn't the appropriate venue be an AfD? I think Black Kite's deletion was a bit hasty, particularly considering his rationale ("probably a sock of a banned user"). Personally, I think it will have a lasting impact and will continue to be mentioned in relation to the Greek minority in Albania, particularly if a guilty verdict comes in. Athenean (talk) 21:07, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
    • My initial thinking on this is that once we have agreement on the title, we can, with Black Kite's agreement, undelete the article, move it to the agreed-upon title without a redirect, and then have a regular AFD discussion, looking at the degree and type of sourcing. But let's nail down the title, first. You're now happy with "death of". Future Perfect at Sunrise likes "killing of". Presumably ZjarriRrethues likes "death of", too, since it's the title that xe chose. ☺ I suggest that the two of you work on convincing Future Perfect at Sunrise (or xe work on convincing the two of you ☺). Uncle G (talk) 21:19, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
      • No objection against "death of" from me. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
        • Let's see what Black Kite and Timotheus Canens have to say about undeleting this and sending it through AFD. Uncle G (talk) 21:30, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
          • There's also Aigest, who was probably the first one to start a discussion about the article.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 21:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
          • As long as it is calm and civil, I think an AfD would be a good idea to sort out the NOTNEWS issue. It is my view that ZjarriRrethues' interaction ban, however, prevents him from participating in any AfD on this article. T. Canens (talk) 02:45, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
          • If there is an AfD I think that no Balkans users should take part because numerous similar AfDs became voting matches, where users who hadn't edited in a long time showed up to support their co-ethnics or people who never even participate in such discussions joined the discussions just to oppose users of ethnicities they dislike and honestly this is exactly what this AfD will be if it is ever started. Although I don't think that my interaction is related to the AfD I won't take part in it since TC thinks it is related.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 08:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
• (unindent)Uncle G. thanks for notifying me about the move of the discussion and you'll have my full input by tomorrow. Btw although in Greek sources he is mentioned as Aristotelis Goumas, his citizenship was Albanian so his name was Aristotel Guma. Of course that is correct if he was an Albanian citizen, but if he had Greek citizenship his Greek name should be used and technically that means he wasn't member of the minority, but that's not the most important issue. Unfortunately the vast majority of the few sources available are articles published in those 2-4 days after the event and mainly repeat each other like all media, so if this gets restored we only have those to use(which is a NOTNEWS case). However, if we set a precedent by restoring this one then we'll have to allow all other similar articles that more or less fail the event notability criteria--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 21:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • At least one of the sources used is non-Greek, treats him as a member of the minority, uses his Greek name, and was published a month after the event. Athenean (talk) 21:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The specific incident has affected the diplomatic relations between the two countries, also we have some 7k hits in google and articles in us media [[12]].Alexikoua (talk) 21:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)7k hits on google mean nothing because on wikipedia we don't use google hits to decide whether a subject is notable or not and even if we did so that would be an argument against notability since most events covered by the media can get much more than 7k hits.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 22:03, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, at least you don't disagree that it affected, it still affects, diplomatic relations, which is more than enough. Not to mention that it was reported by reliable international media.Alexikoua (talk) 22:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

(unindent)I understand that you want the article to be restored but please don't make or deductions about its inexistent effect on diplomatic relations(diplomatic relations are affected by economic and political interests not such issues).--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 22:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC) Well? Can we undelete the article and start the AfD, so we can properly hash out all the notability issues? This discussion appears to have stalled. Athenean (talk) 23:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Joshua Gardner

Joshua Gardner (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - I nearly nominated this for deletion under WP:BLP1E but thought that before I do so, I would get feedback here. I found this article after reading the talk page of Duke of Cleveland - I had forgotten about this whole incident.

The basic argument for deletion is BLP1E, but it is also worth noting that there is a Wikipedia connection, which gives me additional concerns about a self-centered bias. If there had been no Wikipedia connection, would we have written an article?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:27, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

• With three previous AfDs all resulting in keep, I believe that a further AfD would be a waste of time. Yes, I know that standards of notability and whatnot can change, but really the prospects here seem quite dim. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:28, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Reading those is an interesting tour through Wikipedia history. I notice that none of the previous nominations explicitly cited WP:BLP1E - I wonder when that particular acronym became popular, and the ideas around it fully absorbed. At least some of the 'keep' votes are clearly for invalid reasons: to punish the guy for misusing Wikipedia or to warn other would-be frauds. Those would be responded to effectively today, and discounted in the closing. Additionally, the transient nature of the event becomes ever more clear with the passage of time.

    The guy is still in jail, contrary to what the article suggests, which helps show how poorly maintained such obscure articles may be. Until he gets out of jail, which is now slated for August of next year, the BLP issues are perhaps minimal. But at that time, this guy is going to get out of jail, a convicted felon at age 28, and very possibly intent on setting his life straight. At that point, I think there will be grave and serious reasons to consider whether this article might be causing harm. (Or to be fair to those whose views differ radically from mine, to consider as well whether this article might at that point be a further public service to warn people away from him. I don't think that's true, but it is debatable by reasonable people.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:29, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

    • The problem with articles like this is that they are "interesting" - so we tend to drop any notions of objective notability and go for human interest. It's two and a half years since the last AfD, which had such low interest it is hard to justify it as "settled consensus", so I'd say it is worth another pop with a well-written nomination. Jimbo, IMO you should nominate this. We might as well have this discussion in a formal debate on AfD.--Scott Mac 09:41, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
    • It was around May 2007 that the idea was being expressed by multiple people.

      The question to ask here is whether this is information about the person's life and works or information about the school. It seems to me that a lot of this is about activities that occurred at the school and the detective work done by the schoolchildren. There's one of those badly named "Controversies" sections ("Controversies" and "Criticism" are such unimaginative section titles.) in Stillwater Area High School where we could merge, and that doesn't require AFD or administrator tools. Perhaps future children at the same school reading about their school on Wikipedia in years to come will see how resourceful their forebears were, and be inspired. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 13:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

      • I like the merge option. Let's wait a bit longer to get more opinions on this. (In my view, the article on the high school is unconvincing regarding notability. But that's a question for a different day.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:25, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
        • I like the idea of merging to Duke of Cleveland, as that is where the encyclopedicity is really. It can be nominated at the pages to be merged page, where precious few people will see it. Ultimately AfD and Merge should be merged...but I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon...Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:48, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
          • Hmm, I think it has absolutely nothing to do with the Duke of Cleveland, though. It's a name he picked more or less randomly, I am sure, and in any event, I doubt very much whether the rather serious folk who edit the history of the Peerages articles will be pleased for one second to see this kind of non-notable cruft turn up. This will end up being a back-door deletion if we go that route, which I'm not opposed to since I think it should be speedied under CSD G13 "Give me a break". (Haha, yes I just made that one up!)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:40, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

BLP1E should never lead to a deletion but either to a renaming/refocusing of the article on the event or at worst to an information-keeping merge. We don't delete something that has 10 reliable sources. --Cyclopia^talk 11:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

In this case neither the person nor the event has any lasting importance. Wolfview (talk) 06:05, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with Cyclopedia. BLP1E should often lead to a renaming/refocusing, but should also often lead to deletion. Wolfview is right: neither the person nor the event has any lasting importance here. This is like any number of cute human interest "true crime" stories that make the rounds globally. It got press coverage because it's a cute story about high school kids tracking down someone who pretended to be nobility, not because it is actually newsworthy or important. Merely counting the number of sources (which all say about the same thing, which is next to nothing) is not a valid means of editorial decision making.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:02, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Following up to myself to emphasize this point, I went to google news and typed 'weird news' and picked the first thing I found, and then did another search for that. I quickly found the case of "hiccup girl" Jennifer Mees with 652 sources, many of them from very high quality newspapers. But there is nothing encyclopedic about her case at all. She had hiccups for 5 days. Now she's accused of murder. She's mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for Hiccup for the original incident, including the murder incident. I think that (a) there is no way to have an encyclopedia article and that a BLP1E should result in deletion, not an article about the incident and (b) the incident (particularly the murder) should not be in the entry on Hiccup since someone having hiccups for 5 days is hardly noteworthy outside of newspaper human interest fluff. (Or, anyway, if it is to be included there, there needs to be some explanation of why it is notable, for example a medical authority saying it was the most unusual case in history or something like that. As I understand it - but Wikipedia doesn't currently tell me - cases of intractable hiccuping are far from unknown in the medical literature.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

At this point, per our guidelines and polices, she's easily notable. BLP1E doesn't apply (now two events), and WP:N is trivially met (massive sources). We can argue if that means our policies and guidelines are out of wack or if she should have an article of course. Hobit (talk) 02:43, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

• Delete If we had articles about everyone who lied in order to have sex with someone that would be... at least 100 times... the number of artices we have now. -Wolfview (talk) 15:33, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Jennifer Lerner

• Jennifer Lerner (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I removed some coatracky stuff that was recently added to the article by newly created account Humbert1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). See my note on the talk page. It has been restored by that editor. Opinions on this, please. --TS 22:36, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Welcomed users that had edited the page. Removed the material that violates WP:UNDUE WEIGHT in a WP:BLP. Semi-protected the page. Posted a warning to talk page of user Humbert1 (talk · contribs). -- Cirt (talk) 22:41, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Humbert1 (talk · contribs) did it again. User blocked for two days. -- Cirt (talk) 10:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

And he did it yet again October 27, immediately after getting off being blocked. betsythedevine (talk) 02:15, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

And again today, same edit [13]; could some admin please reblock? betsythedevine (talk) 16:21, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Blocked indef. -- Cirt (talk) 16:22, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Andre Geim

Hello,

Andre Geim (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - There is a dispute going on in regards to Andre Geim's ethnicity. Most sources state that he is an ethnic German, and had a German Jewish grandmother.

Practically all members of the discussion agreed that that is how it should be phrased in his article's "Biography" section.

However, one editor Epeefleche (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - was canvassed by a blocked sock-puppeteer Russian.science (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) into claiming that Andre Geim is 100% Jewish.

Russian.science (a vandal who has been blocked indefinitely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Russian.science) contacted Epeefleche using one of his sock-puppets and asked him to:

"I propose that you kindly edit the article as follow: (there is the same text in the Richard Feynman's page) Andre Geim is from a Jewish family. His family originated from Germany."

(From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Epeefleche)

The sock-puppet also contacted several other editors whom he/she thought might take his/her side: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Historian.X1

Currently user Epeefleche is not willing to discuss the issue, and is ignoring the majority of the sources. He also claims he was not canvassed, although he has never contributed to the article before he was contacted by the sock puppet.

Therefore, I would like to ask for assistance in resolving the issue, based on the sources provided, and in accordance with the Wikipedia editing style.

Regards, --Therexbanner (talk) 11:23, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

• You are seeing a contradiction where there is none: he can be both German and Jewish, there's no need for us to choose only one. Responded on talk page. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not saying he can't be. The sources state he is 1/4 Jewish which is great, and that's what the article should say. What some editor is trying to do is to say he is only Jewish ignoring his other ancestry. I don't think that is the right approach, I don't know.--Therexbanner (talk) 16:43, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Nomo -- that's a point I've made to Therex many times before. He continues to say -- as in his lead argument here, where he is trying to "prove" that Geim is not Jewish -- that "Most sources state that he is an ethnic German". But while I have informed him at least three times that being Jewish and being German are not mutually exclusive (see German Jew), he keeps on making that "point" as his lead argument, as he did above. It is somewhat confusing.

As mentioned more than once on the talk page in question, there are multiple refs that say without equivocation that he is Jewish. Full stop. As our Arb Committee indicated just within this past year, in such circumstances it is not appropriate for an editor to edit war to delete the text (and reference), rather than reflect it.

Also, I was not canvassed, as I've told Therex previously more than once. But as I've edited many Jewish lists (feel free to check my entries, or ask for examples), I edited this one as well, and simply received a note of agreement subsequent to my indicating my opinion.

Furthermore, I've discussed the issue at length on the article talk page, contrary to Therex's untrue assertion. The Arb committee has just this past year addressed behavior similar to that of Therex here -- I suggest someone speak to him before he is sanctioned as others have been, as I seem not to be able to sufficiently express myself to him.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Epeefleche has added Geim, who is Jewish, .. The subject has one jewish grandparent. This addition is clearly a BLP issue of undue genetic labeling, and no one would claim a person with one jewish grandparent fitted the description ..Geim, who is Jewish, Off2riorob (talk) 18:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

That's false, evidencing a lack of understanding. See the discussion at the Geim page.--Epeefleche (talk) 11:01, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Maintenance tags

I am seeing increasing numbers of OTRS requests regarding maintenance tags on articles (most recent: Quin Snyder (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), but many more examples).

I think we need to have a debate about maintenance tags, BLPs, timeliness of fixes, and perhaps consider some kind of workflow or process to identify long-standing maintenance tags, review them and potentially remove or stubify articles with issues rather than leaving them there forever with warnings of "peacock terms" and the like. It's undoubtedly true that such articles violate our policies, but there is a tension betwene the aim of identifying and fixing bad articles with the aim of respect to article subjects as enshrined in WP:BLP. Incidentally, Jimbo is also interested in this, so any good ideas will definitely be appreciated. Guy (Help!) 14:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm a fan of the method of starting from scratch BLPs with poor sourcing. In the case of Snyder, where most of the facts are uncontroversial, rather than slash-and-burn, we should move the content to a non-indexed sandbox, and re-introducing policy-conforming content gradually. Sceptre ^(talk) 14:26, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I assume the issue here is related to tags for issues like POV and sourcing, not other maintenance tags such as Template:Orphan or Template:Copy edit. Since there are a number of maintenance categories and they can rack up a lot of articles, I think we would need to be clear on what tags/categories are the problem, and not accidentally set unnecessary standards for fixing problems that aren't related to the BLP policy. On the other hand, if subjects are writing OTRS to complain about poor grammar in the articles about them, I'd want to hear about that. --RL0919 (talk) 14:46, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

(The problem isn't stated clearly: Are editors concerned about long-standing tags on BLPs, BLP-related tags, something else?)

Jon Fisher might be an example. It was created two years ago by a WP:SPA. I encountered it a few months later while cleaning up some spam, and tagged it. Some minor cleanup was done over the next half-dozen months, leaving a single tag. Then this month a number of new SPAs appeared and began edit-warring with each other and and older SPA ip over the tag. The only edit-warrior that stayed around long enough to explain thought it was a WP:BATTLE. The attention that the edit-warring brought to the article resulted in a much-improved article. --Ronz (talk) 14:47, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Although these tags are good if they inspire someone to improve an article, I can see how a reader might think they were an attack on the subject of the article. As if saying the article is bad is saying the person is also bad. Maybe they should be left on for a month and then taken off. That should give people a chance to improve the article if they are so inclined. Wolfview (talk) 15:15, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

A few thoughts. At least one tag does sound very much like an attack on the subject of the article: COI. I think this tag should almost never be placed directly on an article, although it can be quite useful on the talk page. Also, maintenance tags on BLPs should always include a dated category so that interested BLP editors can look for the oldest ones. And my final quick thought is that there is an empirical question here which could, in theory, be tested with a randomized trial: do these tags actually cause improvement to articles? I personally doubt it and would rather us pursue other methods which might be more effective. One of the best might be to increase the visibility for all editors (through a number of methods) of older dated maintenance tags. There are plenty of good people who enjoy (as I do) working on random BLPs that have problems - let's make it easier for people to be invited to do that, and to sort their work effectively. I'm very interested in the public policy article rating experiment.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

COI tags are definitely problematic, as discussed on Template talk:COI and elsewhere. I think they're acceptable where there's a corresponding WP:COIN discussion that includes concerns of problematic editing to the article, and where there's a need for article cleanup after it's been established that coi-violating editing was done to such an article.

BLP tags (like {{blpdispute}}) shouldn't remain on an article for any length of time.

What are other tags that tend to be problems? {{autobiography}} {{advert}}, {{likeresume}}, {{notability}}, {{peacock}}, and {{POV }} are a few that are best dealt with quickly. --Ronz (talk) 17:19, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't seem to turn up a link right now, but I recall reading recently an article that pointed out that Wikipedia may be more trustworthy than traditional encyclopedias precisely because of our maintenance tags. We're relatively honest about the flaws in our articles. If we begin second-guessing ourselves about putting the maintenance tags on an article—not because the article doesn't merit being noted for a given flaw, but out of concern that someone, somewhere will misinterpret the tag as being a personal attack upon the subject of the article—I think we would damage our own collective credibility. We would no longer be assessing articles on their own merits, but based on our own guess as to the perceptions of some mythical reader who cannot assume good faith. I agree that COI should be used with caution, but where an article clearly has broad swaths written by someone with an obvious COI and the text has yet to be vetted, COI is an important warning to the reader: "This content may be self-serving bullshit. Read with a grain of salt." It would be bad if the population at large thought that we were self-censoring maintenance tags because we were afraid the tags make Wikipedia look bad; wouldn't that be a worse unintended consequence? Tag the articles! Fix the problem so the tag can be removed, as soon as possible, absolutely! But please, let's not make policy that we should instead sweep things under the rug. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 21:59, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

The COI tag should not be used unless there's actual evidence that the subject has edited the article in ways that violate our content policies. However, such edits should always reverted anyway, regardless of who the editor is. So, I don't really see a reason why we need the tag on the article itself but as Jimbo says it might be useful on the talk page if there's actual evidence of any wrongdoing. I don't see how that sweeps anything under the rug. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 05:08, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

A query -- might it be reasonable to establish two major categories of tags for BLPs - one being "not visible to the outside reader" tags which refer primarily to mechanics of WP (lacking references, COI, peacock etc.) and one being decidedly visible to outside readers, and more emphasized in appearance than currently, for "debateably politically or religiously biassed in nature", "containing excessive negative (or positive) opinions on a subject" , "containing rumors which should be taken with caution" etc. Collect (talk) 17:50, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I found Guy's note about Quin Snyder at the basketball project talk page. Unfortunately, there are some additional issues in the article, namely, copyvio. Chunks of the article appear to be copied from here. Eg: "Following a year with the Duke University Management Company, Snyder entered the Duke Law School, which he attended for a year before enrolling in Duke's Fuqua School of Business as well. It was during this year in which he played for the Raleigh Bullfrogs of the Global Basketball Association."

Copyvio is a much more serious issue than, say, peacock terms. How should we move forward with the Snyder page without upsetting the family members even more? Zagalejo^^^ 19:25, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

It's got to be removed, it's not even just one sentence (I used Earwig). Although no one wants to upset anyone unnecessarily I hope, unless someone is going to volunteer to remove the copyvio and replace the text, then we just remove the copyvio. Dougweller (talk) 15:16, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

What is Earwig? I tried to get rid of some of the problematic content, but I'm not sure if I got it all. Zagalejo^^^ 05:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I can suggest a slightly odd way of dealing with this problem (which might be extensible to maintenance tags more generally). rather than relying on fully random volunteers, set up a page where people can sign up to be what I will call 'bot-driven' volunteers, and then have a bot randomly assign them four cleanup problems every week - the bot can just leave a note with links on each editor's talk page. This way everyone gets a clear and manageable todo list, no one feels overwhelmed, and the list gets worked through slowly and efficiently. plus it scales up well - bot overhead should be low, regardless of the size of the volunteer pool.

The idea needs development (e.g., the bot should check to see if an editor is getting backlogged and stop giving them assignments until they catch up, editors should have a way to opt-out temporarily due to real life issues, probably want to prioritize issues, etc.) but it's all certainly doable. what do you think? --Ludwigs2 19:49, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

We used to have the WolterBot cleanup listings that generated a very extensive list of tags by wikiproject. It died in March this year when Mr Wolter went away, but I'm very dismayed that no one has been able to revive it. It at least gave those who wanted to cleanup their project a good list. We now have User:DASHBot generating lists each day of unreferenced BLPs... I'd assume that it could fairly easily create lists of other maintenance tags too. Pick a tag or two, ask Tim and see what you get. But as the UBLP removal has been slow going... I doubt you'd get much traction on any cleanup task. Most people just don't seem to care. The-Pope (talk) 16:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

well, that was my point about talk-page assignments. I know from my own experience that I find cleanup categories overwhelming - I look at one of them and the last thing I want to do is start trying to tackle it. the effort seems unrewarding. but if someone posted me a handful a week, I'd do them and feel good about it. let me go over and look at the bots you linked; maybe I can adapt them. --Ludwigs2 20:09, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Use of a dead link in a BLP

Does the use of a dead link to reliable source constitute libel? The edit in question is at Anwar al-Awlaqi, see this diff [14]. Shouldn't the other other editor have at least checked for an update for that dead link before removing it per WP:DEAD LINK? The situation itself has been resolved as I easily updated the reference in question and restored the material. Supertouch (talk) 19:49, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how it's libel. If the reference isn't being disputed itself, if the only problem is the that the article is moved or no longer online, then the link should simply be removed from the inline citation. --Ronz (talk) 20:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Then we are left with an uncited statement that compares an individual to Osama Bin Laden LiteralKa (talk) 21:04, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

It is cited — the citation in question was from The Nation newspaper (or something like that) — however the link to that source is dead. Supertouch (talk) 21:11, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. It is cited, and the reference itself isn't being disputed for any reason I'm aware, other than the article is now either moved or no longer online. --Ronz (talk) 21:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

"if the only problem is the that the article is moved or no longer online, then the link should simply be removed from the inline citation." LiteralKa (talk) 21:21, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course, if a copy is found online then the citation should include that link.

Am I missing something? The citation links to a copy of the article, correct? All that happened is that the outdated link was replaced.

Where's the comparison to Osama Bin Laden? --Ronz (talk) 21:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

This was not the case when I reverted it. LiteralKa (talk) 21:25, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

"All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation" WP:BLP, "he has been described as the "bin Laden of the internet." LiteralKa (talk) 21:24, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Note the article was originally accessed the day it appeared. After a while these types of articles are moved to the archive section of online papers. Thankfully this is one of those that has a free search engine which produces the archive url which it looks like somebody already did.--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:28, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. So is this resolved then? I don't see anything in dispute. --Ronz (talk) 21:30, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I simply had an issue with someone being compared to the most wanted man in America, if this was an accurate comparison, it surely could be found elsewhere. LiteralKa (talk) 21:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I brought this up to discuss to discuss the issue of citing a dead link in general, as a guideline, even if if the example I mentioned had already been resolved. Supertouch (talk) 21:43, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Nothing requires an online source, not even a BLP. We simply have to provide enough information that an interested editor with an unlimited budget of money and time could obtain and verify that it says what it says. Jclemens (talk) 22:13, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

True but if USAToday is any example the electronic and paper may not have the same title so every other piece of information (author, date, news paper) known should be recorded so if the electronic version does go bye bye the hard copy can be found (if possible I included the hard page references in USAToday references I come across).--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Full reference information very important to BLPs. --Ronz (talk) 14:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Key words

I just did an inventory of tagged "Unrefenced BLPs", that use one of a small number of words (relating to sexuality, drugs, criminal acts, infidelity and so forth). I hope this can help to minimise at least the legal risk from unreffed BLPs. The results are below: if this is useful it can be extended,, run reglarly/automatically , whatever. Rich Farmbrough, 00:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

I see about 10-20% which are clearly false positives (e.g. criminal defense attorney), which is not at all bad for a first run at something like this. Jclemens (talk) 01:09, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I did a few - seems no one ever looks at the NYT for the names. I would put the false positive rate a bit higher - but this is clearly a good way to handle possible problems. I would have looked for "rumored" and "alleged" as problematic words as well. Collect (talk) 18:02, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

(Using bullets since the points/questions are so disparate.)

• Ok I made a longer "risk words" list and ran it last night to generate an article list - when I've done the report form that I'll add rumour/allege.
• I hoped that the concordance would mean that there is no need to open the false positives.
• I mentioned prison governors in a VP note abut the list...
• The application keeps track of people it has already reported, I would guess not worth reporting them twice?
• Would it be useful to make the word list available to the community to add to?
• How often would a new list be useful?

Rich Farmbrough, 10:16, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

Possibly libellous, unreferenced BLPS

The following unreferenced BLPS have been identified as higher risk due to their content.

170 + BLPs

Section 1 Angel L. Reyes, III contains the following text: down by hiring illegal immigrants. The Cactus ## litigation, dangerous prescription drugs, product defect and description of lawsuits undertaken by law firm Jezhotwells (talk) 18:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC) # Gregory Gibson contains the following text: he commenced an affair with Arbus, and The plot of a book! Jezhotwells (talk) 18:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC) John R. Gordon contains the following text: Souljah - about a gay African former child Polt of a film. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Ernest Hardy contains the following text: an essay on gay [[Rap music|rappers description of an essay! Jezhotwells (talk) 18:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC) # Sylvia A. Law contains the following text: may be about gay rights"], [[The New Title of an artcile in the New Yorker! Jezhotwells (talk) 18:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC) # Menelas N. Pangalos contains the following text: development of novel drugs to treat [[Alzheimer description of subject developing new drugs for Alzheimers! Jezhotwells (talk) 18:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Miha Remec contains the following text: s father in prison. Later all of Shinobu Sugawara contains the following text: a sex crazed bisexual contentious material removed, article remains unsourced Leo C. Zeferetti contains the following text: Category:American prison officers Jacob Gelt Dekker contains the following text: Dekker is openly gay. [http://winq.com contentious material removed, article remains unsourced Section 2 Caro Fraser contains the following text: happens to be bisexual, and under whose refers to a character in a novel the subject wrote so not really a BLP issue, article remains unsourced Nil Einne (talk) 21:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Jeffery W. Kelly contains the following text: first in class drugs for the amelioration Peter Knecht contains the following text: 1936) is a criminal defense attorney from all Los Angeles criminal lawyers. The flamboyant and consultant on criminal justice for major 9/11]] America, abuse of power within Jeffrey M. Koopersmith contains the following text: tutored women in prison and counseled elderly Elaine Lordan contains the following text: for having an affair with a married her battle with alcoholism and her subsequent contentious material removed, article remains unsourced Joe Alioto Veronese contains the following text: worked in the fraud bureau and helped relating to a fraud whistle-blowing matter Vatican policy that gay couples should not Robert T. Clark contains the following text: allowed an anti-gay climate to fester Aldo Piga contains the following text: A sonnet to gay lover Roger Gibbons Sam Smith (journalist) contains the following text: savings and loan scandal]], the problems of Rosarita Tawil contains the following text: Nude pictures scandal Section 3 Ahmed Khaled Towfik contains the following text: secretly having an affair with a colleague Thomas W. Sneddon, Jr. contains the following text: and enhance federal criminal prosecutions for failure Daniel Wattenberg contains the following text: the Iran-Contra scandal, he left public Mario Carrillo contains the following text: suffered months of scandal over the hiring Leslie Dunner contains the following text: been released from prison two years earlier Frank Vandenbroucke (politician) contains the following text: in the Agusta scandal. He acknowledged that Sander Lantinga contains the following text: several types of drugs) and Try Before Adriano Moreira contains the following text: later died in prison for his attempt Kerry O'Quinn contains the following text: 4443-gay-of-the-dead "offending" word was in a source URL; article was incorrectly tagged as unsourced, although sourcing needs work Serge Teyssot-Gay contains the following text: http://www.sergeteyssot-gay.com/ Serge Teyssot "Gay" is his name, so it's not surprising that it is in a URL! RolandR (talk) 09:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC) Section 4 Theodosius (Lazor) contains the following text: report on this scandal. The report was Huynh Ngoc Si contains the following text: 11/815914/ PCI scandal harms Vietnam’s Leslie Boghosian contains the following text: suffering from sexual abuse at the hands Hydroxybutyric acid|GHB]], alcoholism in the [[NHL Andrew Collins (author) contains the following text: the Green Stone affair—an event that Dimitrios Diathessopoulos contains the following text: Greek athletics. The affair ended with Foura Colm Doran contains the following text: as tense an affair, however, Wexford emerged still a close affair. For the second Tesfaye Gessesse contains the following text: and sent to prison for his play Sara Gizaw contains the following text: was released from prison in 1989. She Mick Jacob contains the following text: was an exciting affair with a record as tense an affair, however, Wexford emerged still a close affair. For the second E. Patrick Johnson contains the following text: history of black gay men in the Martin Quigley contains the following text: was an exciting affair with a record as tense an affair, however, Wexford emerged still a close affair. For the second Reham Abdel Ghafour contains the following text: made me a criminal) (2006) her character Anthony Thiselton contains the following text: leaking of a gay clergyman's name Tony Valdez contains the following text: news segment, profiling criminal suspects and missing well known anti-illegal immigration activists, during while some anti-illegal immigration called on general issues of illegal immigration, without the Buck Zumhofe contains the following text: was sent to prison in 1986. He Todd Cauthorn contains the following text: starting a love affair with the [[Steel Allan Fotheringham contains the following text: society whirl (and scandal) in the 1950s Anthony Gates contains the following text: inhumane treatment for prison inmates (Noa Yasa Ambrose George contains the following text: in a political scandal which caused the Steven Allen Greenberg contains the following text: a criminal [[Defense (legal)|defense Section 6 Naoko Hayashiba contains the following text: Association during a scandal in 1995, and Malik B. contains the following text: stop using damaging drugs and to rededicate William P. Murphy Jr. contains the following text: trays equipped with drugs and sterilized tools Nada Inanda contains the following text: the treatment of alcoholism, and is currently Hiroshi Nakajima contains the following text: concept of essential drugs, as Secretary of Kenji Ozawa contains the following text: chotto(Tokyo love affair/I'm afraid James Penzi contains the following text: before tragically facing criminal charges for murder Luis Antonio Rivera Diaz contains the following text: advocate against crime, drugs, child abuse, homelessness Fernanda Karina Somaggio contains the following text: the major mensalão scandal in [[Brazil involvement in allegedly illegal activities in connection negotiations to pose naked for [[Playboy magazine M. Wesley Swearingen contains the followifng text: years doing serious criminal investigations, which had pattern of political corruption and illegal repression Philip Watts contains the following text: the later reserves scandal that forced his Roger Williams (playwright) contains the following text: and the Cardiff gay scene Tursunbai Bakir uulu contains the following text: Felix Kulov]] from prison, an end to Anne Brooke contains the following text: writes in the gay crime or fantasy (Sourced well enough for the claim.) Da Bing contains the following text: celebrity drug use scandal of late 2006 Robert Gordon (psychologist) contains the following text: plea bargaining in criminal cases. Indeed, his ENRON corporate litigation scandal. Besides his work In the criminal law area, Gordon Arthur Dion Hanna contains the following text: the flourishing drugs trade of the Lester Kinsolving contains the following text: of gay rights organizations — "the s known as “gay plague.” (laughter) No (comments in question are sourced) Dennis McFarland contains the following text: familiar themes of alcoholism and death Ehsan Naraghi contains the following text: From Palace to prison: Inside the Iranian Section 8 Rolando Paulino contains the following text: subject of a scandal because one of Jenny Suico contains the following text: he was a gay passions for money, affair and temporary celebrity Najah Wakim contains the following text: current Lebanese political scandal, Najah Wakim is into the political corruption in Lebanon in Ken Blum contains the following text: discoverer of the alcoholism gene due to many suggestions that alcoholism had genetic antecedents Meli Bogileka contains the following text: This merger, an affair complicated by several Filipe Bole contains the following text: politicians untainted by scandal, and is noted Ron Erhardt (politician) contains the following text: views on abortion, gay rights and with Edward Greenspan contains the following text: hedge-funds related fraud Alex Karczmar contains the following text: inducible by several drugs such as oxamides and effects of drugs on learning of Graeme Leung contains the following text: Jope Seniloli]] from prison, where he had of Queensland for corruption. He chose to Section 9 Larry Murphy (hurler) contains the following text: was a different affair as Kilkenny won Nothing to do with sexual affairs! Jezhotwells (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Epeli Qaraninamu Nailatikau contains the following text: the Senator's prison visits had been Prison visiting is a perfectly normal business for parliamentarians! Jezhotwells (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2010 (UTC) James Pritchett contains the following text: was having an affair with He is an actor portraying a character having an affair. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Igor Rogov contains the following text: problems of constitutional, criminal law, process, criminology of counteraction of corruption» (2004 Has written a book on corruption! Jezhotwells (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Jope Seniloli contains the following text: early release from prison," declared [[Senate (Fiji technically serving his prison sentence extramurally, he Nazhat Shameem contains the following text: is in the criminal jurisdiction of the very critical of prison conditions for remand delivered papers on corruption, judicial transparency and Andrew Stetson contains the following text: the cover of gay French Magazine Tetu Samisoni Tikoinasau contains the following text: s release from prison. He considers Speight Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe contains the following text: amid the ICDI affair and was replaced Rizabawa contains the following text: 1997) .... Guard at prison Renato Corti contains the following text: was embrolied in scandal after Pope Benedict Johnny Crass contains the following text: Jesse Jackson]]'s illegitimate daughter pornography allegations League Baseball]] steroid scandal John R. Emshwiller contains the following text: the unfolding Enron scandal with [[Rebecca Smith book on that scandal, [[24 Days Gustavo Gorriti contains the following text: both government and criminal intimidation and targeting Sally Jaxx contains the following text: appearing at many gay pride events. She Kevin Miller (radio host) contains the following text: University lacrosse team scandal|men's lacrosse Terry Moore (actress) contains the following text: Despite appearing naked in Playboy, Moore Tommy Rainone contains the following text: Rainone's love affair with boxing began Tony Saunders contains the following text: again in a rehab assignment, forcing Saunders result of steroid abuse Added source for one, wrong rehab for another, will watchlist. Secret account 18:43, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Rebecca Smith (journalist) contains the following text: the unfolding Enron scandal in 2001, scoring Section 11 Jeth Weinrich contains the following text: cocaine]] trade. The film Jay Blanchard contains the following text: the "alt fuels" scandal that tarnished the Olivier Dupuis contains the following text: was kept in prison for three days two years in prison, he was released half years in prison after a brief Jack Foley (poet) contains the following text: voted number one gay book of the Randall Franks contains the following text: keep children off drugs funds for drug abuse prevention charities Peter Hounam contains the following text: s release from prison on April 21,Text relates to interview with Mordechai Vanunu after Vanunu's release from prison; no BLP infringement. RolandR (talk) 09:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC) Piotr Ikonowicz contains the following text: 5 years in prison for organization of John Ince (politician) contains the following text: team led by criminal defence lawyer [[Rishi Emile Jansen contains the following text: London, he is drugs criminal Frank Houwer Paul Kantner contains the following text: use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD where a brief affair led to the Elaine Lafferty contains the following text: the O. J. Simpson criminal and civil trials Stein Ole Larsen contains the following text: the [[Terra Securities scandal Roberto Laserna contains the following text: on coca and cocaine addresses drug policy Normand Lester contains the following text: to the sponsorship scandal. [http://ledevoir.com Domenico Messina contains the following text: 2006 Serie A scandal|Calciopoli scandal]], giving Shettima Ali Monguno contains the following text: Force and internal affair 1965-66, federal Flavia Vento contains the following text: involved in the scandal Vallettopoli for an Albert N. Whiting contains the following text: public administration and criminal justice were also Amira al Hayb contains the following text: 8 years in prison due to killing Aldo Biscardi contains the following text: due to the scandal which led to Section 13 Gabriel Block-Watne contains the following text: the [[Terra Securities scandal Jared Bowen contains the following text: Church’s sexual abuse scandal, a special David Burt contains the following text: role of nefarious prison officer Jim Fenner Jamar Davis contains the following text: turned to dealing drugs BLP violating vandalism removed! Liam Devaney contains the following text: was a close affair; however, Tipp emerged Donald Gelling contains the following text: in a financial scandal, Gelling was re removed "he ate the opposition"! Kelly George (actor) contains the following text: he plays a criminal's minder in Iso H contains the following text: 2006 in labor prison in Helsinki. He clear BLP violation removed!! Gary Johnston contains the following text: experimental commissions with prison inmates and in Dave Kane contains the following text: handling of the criminal trials of those unrelated BLP violation removed! Section 14 Henk Krol contains the following text: chief of the gay magazine [[Gay Krant Kevin Lamoureux contains the following text: a vote-buying scandal involving one of Bruce Logan contains the following text: recognition of lesbian/gay civil unions, for euthanasia]], lesbian and gay [[civil unions in Anchor|Plagiarism scandal}}In October 2005 Martin Ludlow contains the following text: five-year federal prison sentence. Ludlow reached Maeve McGuire contains the following text: of a young homosexual played by Ben Gord Mackintosh contains the following text: predators and child pornography. In addition, Mackintosh even if no criminal convictions have occurred Al McLean contains the following text: due to a scandal Jean de Maillard contains the following text: several books concerning financial crime. He Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici contains the following text: he practiced in criminal, civil and commercial Fernando Olivera contains the following text: as an anti-corruption figure, having made due to a scandal that cost him Odd Arne Pedersen contains the following text: the [[Terra Securities scandal Charles Pollard contains the following text: to policing and criminal policy. Since standing Jean Ragnotti contains the following text: be a tragic affair after the fatal Amelita Ramos contains the following text: silence, and the scandal has had no Bill Reardon contains the following text: during the Watergate scandal, he decide to Arnold S. Relman contains the following text: marketing of new drugs.(Statistical Data Included Gerald A. Reynolds contains the following text: race within the criminal justice system Ferro Rodrigues contains the following text: Casa Pia affair in alleged child abuse crimes Kathy Rude contains the following text: cell transplant, trial drugs and radiation. Now Joan Saura i Laporta contains the following text: oil spill|Prestige affair]] and the [[2003 Section 16 Alejo Sauras contains the following text: played a young homosexual character, Santi. Later Harry Shapiro (author) contains the following text: books relating to drugs and popular musics the-story-of-drugs-and-popular-music the-story-of-drugs-and-popular-music Shooting Stars: drugs, Hollywood and the Sheikh Riaz Ahmad contains the following text: was a practicing criminal lawyer as well Ralph Siegel contains the following text: of the contract scandal he made for Tom Sotis contains the following text: a criminal investigator, [[bounty hunter Maria Luisa Spaziani contains the following text: drew upon his affair with her in Petter Steen jr. contains the following text: the Terra Securities scandal in 2007 Wayne Stenehjem contains the following text: offenders, and increase criminal penalties for drug Fritz Theilen contains the following text: to escape from prison, he survived in Richard Alvin Tonry contains the following text: faced allegations of illegal campaign contributions and one year in prison but never served Section 17 Mike Torode contains the following text: following the Fallagate scandal that led to Judi Tyabji Wilson contains the following text: having an extramarital affair, and Wilson was Nayk Borzov contains the following text: of the word "[[cocaine Randy Bradbury contains the following text: reasons related to alcoholism. Randy was supposed Erlend Bratland contains the following text: that he was homosexual during an interview Henri Caillavet contains the following text: proposed bills concerning gay rights, abortion, transgender

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 00:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

This is a useful list, thanks for putting it together. What do the section breakdowns represent? J04n(talk page) 17:02, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

It might have been better if the articles had been read rather than just picking on words. See my annotations of the first four listed in section 9. No libellous statements there, merely mentions of a hurling match, a Swenator who made prison visits, an actor portraying a character having an affair and a criminologist who has written a book on corruption! Jezhotwells (talk) 18:18, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

And the first six in section one, really this list just picks up words and makes no attempt to check their usage. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

You are missing the point. This isn't a list that's checked, it is an auto-generated list to be checked. I looked at a dozen of the articles, deleted one on sight, and removed BLP violations from two or three others. That's a fairly high success rate for an auto-generated list.--Scott Mac 18:37, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The section breaks are simply for convenience, other projects that have clean-up lists will often mark them off with a Y or N, strike-through, comment etc, and itse much easier to open a msll section than the whole list. Rich Farmbrough, 08:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

note: moved to Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Risk_lists/List_1 (but still transcluded here) List 2 imminent. Rich Farmbrough, 00:13, 28 October 2010 (UTC).

• Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Risk_lists - main page
• Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Risk_lists/List_2 - second list
• Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Risk_lists/risk words - the "risk words" list - semi=protected, feel free to add words (or phrases).

• Feedback welcome here or at my talk page.

Rich Farmbrough, 01:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC).

Dylan Evans

Dylan Evans (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
This article is currently the target of an IP editor who wants it to include the claim that Evans was found guilty of sexual harassment by his employer (University College Cork). One source [15] indicates that he was exonerated; others (see talk page) say that one charge was upheld. Perhaps the latter is true -- if so, what to do in light of the source indicating "exoneration"?

In this connection, a couple of paragraphs from a Times story might be instructive:

"While an investigation cleared Dr Evans of sexual harassment prior to his showing her the bat fellatio paper, it found that this incident amounted to a joke with sexual innuendo, though it accepted he had not intended to offend. Professor Michael Murphy, the UCC president, declared that the complaint of sexual harassment had been upheld, and punished Dr Evans by imposing a two-year period of “monitoring and appraisal” and requiring him to complete special training."

What I read here is that the external panel did not "uphold" one charge -- it uses precise language about its findings, and then the story says that Murphy (VC of UCC) "declared" that one charge had been upheld. In typical journalistic fashion, then, subsequent news articles lose the subtlety and state simply that one charge was upheld. We could get into all the details, but then if we write a lot about it perhaps the whole thing crosses into "undue". At this stage it is only the IP and me -- so, more input, please. Article currently semi-protected while something is worked out. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 11:33, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The precise language used by the external investigators in upholding one complaint is quoted at http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/sex-harassment-row-sparks-global-debate-2191288.html (and other sources): "The question for us is whether Dr Evans's action can reasonably be regarded as sexually offensive, humiliating or intimidating to Dr Salerno Kennedy. // We find that the action was a joke with sexual innuendo and it was reasonable for Dr Salerno Kennedy to be offended by being presented with it in her office alone. // We therefore find that this action is upheld though it was not Dr Evans's intention to cause offence." Thus it is not President Murphy's interpretation, nor media mis-reporting, but the precise language of the investigating panel. ip 109.78.xx.xx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.78.238.105 (talk) 14:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Diana Whalen

The following quote from the article on Nova Scotian politician Diana Whalen is unfair and from an illegitimate source. It is a blogger's personal opinion and should not be included in the politician's biography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jillemader (talk • contribs) 13:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Blog referenced material removed.--Scott Mac 17:48, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Eyes needed - Donald Leifert

Resolved

 – Article rewritten from reliable sources--Ronz (talk) 15:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I've been reverting the listing of a certain Donald Leifert at Deaths in 2010 as it has been sourced only to a blog and is not being reported in any mainstream media. Since the initial entry at Deaths in 2010, an article has been created filled with memorial type quotes from fansites and just a large amount of unsourced trivia, personal info, and decidedly unencyclopedic material (the version prior to my stubbing can be found here). To be honest I don't think he even meets notability criteria and will likely send the article to AfD; in the meantime could a couple BLP-minded individuals pop it on to their watchlist to keep WP:NOTMEMORIAL type info out? --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 20:11, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Given that I am now being personally attacked on both my talk page and on the article talk page, could someone kindly step in to help? --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 22:08, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

All of the unsourced, blog and facebook sourced, and likely copyvio material has all been restored by another editor. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 22:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks like the editor causing the problems is controlling himself better.

Still, the article needs to be rewritten per BLP. --Ronz (talk) 22:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

US politicians involved in the upcoming election

Resolved

 – No longer at ANI Nil Einne (talk) 09:11, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Just a note there is a discussion at Wikipedia:ANI#ONE WEEK FREEZE requested on deleting US election/candidate articles where BLP concerns have been raised. Please keep all discussion there! (I'm mentioning this here because I suspect quite a few here don't monitor ANI, I definitely didn't and having been there a bit recently, I'm thinking I'll go back to not monitoring.) Nil Einne (talk) 21:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

if there are BLP issues, I'd suggest protection until 3rd Novemeber. The other alternative is to nuke the article on the basis that candidates are not notable, and it will be after Nov 3 before DRV gets about to restoring them. Delete and indicate that you will restore on 3rd Nov, if requested.--Scott Mac 15:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I haven't really looked in to the debate that much (I commented when it first appeared due to some confusion, came back a few hours later to find a massive debate) but I think the suggestion of BLP issue is that deleting or redirecting them in itself could create BLP problems, which I find an odd interpretation. (There is obviously the risk of stuff arising in these likely poorly monitored pages.) Nil Einne (talk) 06:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Greg Hicks

If any of you have the time and the inclination would you please take a quick look at this article. It has been tagged as having POV issues and, for the life of me, I can find no POV on the entire page. To me it looks like most acting page stubs. I think a fresh set of eyes might clear things up. My thanks ahead of time to any editor who can assist in this matter. MarnetteD | Talk 22:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep. No POV issues, tag removed. Jclemens (talk) 05:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to check into this Jclemens. The POV tag was replaced with an Advert tag but another editor has removed that also. Again I appreciate your efforts and cheers. MarnetteD | Talk 16:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Juan Williams

The Juan Williams article is experiencing two different issues that require the guidance of this noticeboard. The first is the recentism associated with the firing of Williams from NPR and his employment with Fox News. The second is a bit more problematic, namely, the allegations of verbal misconduct from two decades ago. Viriditas (talk) 00:21, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Auburn (singer)

• Auburn (singer) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - year of birth is doubtful. On first paragraph it shows 1990 while in other paragraph it shows 1989/

Born 1989/1990 - add them both if they are cited and add the cite. Off2riorob (talk) 16:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Dan Benishek

Dan Benishek (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Haven't quite figured out what's going on here, drawn from an Igloo refs removed alert. Seems there is edit warring over a claim in a newspaper, absolutely no discussion on the talk page. Claims might be BLP violations. Can I ask a more knowledgeable editor to turn their attention to it. I will warn the editors involved about WP:3RR, sock puppetry and BLP issues. Thanks, Mechanical digger (talk) 10:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Protected until after the election next week. Someone was trying to insert details about his divorce and kids. It was referenced, but hardly relevant. I suspect that if he loses the article can be deleted as not notable (or redirected to the election article for the constituency). I'm sort tempted to IAR delete it now, as if anyone takes it to DRV it will be after the election before it is restored.--Scott Mac 15:32, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Scott. Mechanical digger (talk) 23:01, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Lauren Hodges

I created a stub for the Rubicon (TV series) actress Lauren Hodges and I've been trying to flesh it out a bit, but there is a lack of decent reliable sources. The actress seems to pass WP:ENT because of her appearances in many TV shows and a couple of movies, but the lack of additional sourcing for verification has led to a dispute with a new editor. My attempts to improve and expand the article have been met with a series of removals of content and reversions. The instability of the article has forced me to withdraw from editing it for the time being, and another editor has wisely requested page protection. I would be interested in attracting new eyes to help resolve the dispute, and any advice about the quality of the sourcing and how it is being used. This version of the article contains the most content, and consequently it includes the content that is "under dispute". -- Scjessey (talk) 16:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Still hoping for a little help here, guys. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Wrecked (film) - "written by" links to wrong Christopher Dodd

Wrecked (film) is not written by Christopher John "Chris" Dodd (born May 27, 1944) an American lawyer and Democratic Party politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Connecticut.

Wrecked (film) is written by: Christopher Dodd - a Canadian screenwriter who lives in Toronto. Wrecked is his first produced feature film.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.26.61.105 (talk) 22:19, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I've changed Christopher Dodd to Christopher Dodd (writer) on this article to avoid confusion. I don't know if the writer is notable enough for his own article. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:27, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Gossip at Charlie Sheen

Can someone have a look at this edit? Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, and these details are WP:UNDUE, in my view.  Cs32en Talk to me  00:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Tabloid-like accusations against Clarence Thomas

• Clarence Thomas (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Recently Clarence Thomas has been in the news, with his former girlfriend making highly-charged accusations against him (in e.g. The Washington Post). Some editors (IP accounts and regular accounts) are using the occasion of this news to introduce highly-inflammatory information into his BLP and related subarticle. Most of the material deals with accusations that relate to their former personal relationship, as opposed to a subordinate employee relationship. As far as I can tell, none of the material deals directly with his behavior or verbal interaction with his subordinates. If it did, then it would be relevant to the Anita Hill accusations, as she was a subordinate of his. Many people involved in the production of The Washington Post and The New York Times clearly strongly dislike Thomas, as he is a favorite whipping boy of left-leaning journalists. In my view, the following paragraph in the lead of WP:BLP applies here:

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, and the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment. This policy applies to BLPs, including any living person mentioned in a BLP even if not the subject of the article, and to material about living persons on other pages. The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia rests with the person who adds or restores material. Drrll (talk) 12:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

WP is also not a good place to insert claims made in new books, as there is a tendency for book publicists to make the most scandalaous charges, which somehow then are not supported by the final product. This is especially a concern during the biennial US political silly season (vide the charges against Arnold S. two years ago, which then turned out to be of trivial significance, charges about Alex Sink using Florida state jets, and so on). Collect (talk) 13:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• I haven't seen anyone talking about inserting "claims made in new books". At issue is material covered in news items in the CNN, New York Times, ABC News, CBS News, Washington Post, among others. As far as I can tell, news items from these sources are acceptable, or even preferred, sources for a BLP.

  Drrll (talk · contribs) has objected because he considers the New York Times and Washington Post to be "left-leaning", "partisan" news outlets ([16]). And because he personally believes that "many people" at the Post and the Times "clearly strongly dislike Thomas" (immediately above). And because he personally considers this material "trashy" ([17]). None of those seem to be policy-based objections to me; they seem to be based on personal opinion and ideological viewpoint.

  This material seems to fall very clearly under the portion of WP:BLP which states: If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. So there is a strong policy-based rationale for including this material, and (as best I can tell) no policy-based objection. I would appreciate additional outside input, though, because I agree that discussion at Talk:Clarence Thomas tends to be driven primarily by editors' personal ideology rather than Wikipedia policy. MastCell ^Talk 17:26, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I have never objected per se to using The NYT or The Washington Post as sources in BLPs. It's just that WP is not obligated to use whatever material these sources put out. The question is that of relevance of adding unrelated sensationalistic material to articles. Drrll (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Inter alia [18] "I have nothing against McEwen, but I hope her book fails to find a publisher." [19] "Of course, McEwan has her own reasons to hype up the issue: she is currently shopping a book about her career and relationship with Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas" and so on. I think it was clear. Collect (talk) 17:58, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree strongly with MastCell, an attempt to make a policy-based objection to this material is utterly unconvincing. It is entirely relevant to his notability. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• As I stated a moment ago on the Thomas Talk page, I, too, agree with MastCell. There's way too much hoopla being made of adding this material. The resistance to adding it by a few editors speaks volumes.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

My understanding was that MastCell favored waiting on inclusion, due to WP:Recentism. In any event, why should the McEwen material all be included in the main Thomas article, instead of included in the applicable sub-article and then merely summarized in the main article; in other words, why disregard WP:Summary style?166.137.136.187 (talk) 23:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

As I counted it, 3 editors here favor major restraint and/or contextualizing McEwen's charges and 3 editors (yourself included) take a different view. Drrll (talk) 13:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Are charges of sexual assault relevant to Al Gore's notability? It was reported by reliable sources. Drrll (talk) 18:52, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you having a hard time finding Talk:Al Gore? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:06, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll take that as a no. Depends on the target of accusations, eh? Drrll (talk) 19:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The main problem right now at the Clarence Thomas article is that WP:Summary style is being disregarded. By the way, Drrll, you should mention at the article talk page when you start a discussion here. Anyway, consensus here is quickly ignored at the article in question.[20]166.137.137.161 (talk) 19:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Administrators' Noticeboard discussion of biographies of living persons that cite no sources

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Unsourced biographies of living persons Jclemens (talk) 16:37, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Juan Williams: Issue about acknowledged & apologized for verbal sexual harassment

I think it would be helpful to have some advice and thoughts on this BLP article. There is a difference of opinion about the relevance of including information (that is cited and sourced) about a well-documented matter whereby Juan Williams was disciplined for verbal sexual harassment over several years at his place of employment - the Washington Post. Williams publicly acknowledged and apologized for some of his behavior. The matter was widely reported at the time (early 90s) and the text in question is sourced and cited - including content drawn from the Washington Post's own report on the matter. One or two editors feel that it is a relatively unimportant matter in the scheme of things and prefer a minimal mention within the body of the article just as part of the section dealing with his chronological history. I and one or two others had felt that it should be in a separate small section fully sourced - which one of the first group of editors disagreed with. He enacted a compromise and placed it in the chronological section - but with a sub-heading. I thought this was a good compromise and I worked with it. However another editor has now deemed that the sexual harassment matter is being given undue weight and feels that it should be just referred to in the same way as all the subject's career information without any sub-heading. He feels that placing any focus on the documented fact that Williams was disciplined for multiple instances of verbal sexual harassment of women and acknowledged/apologized for it, is "puffing up" the matter. So the question is this: Is documented sexual harassment (whether verbal or physical) that was a major news story at the time it happened something of import? Or is there some statute of limitations that permits it to be down-graded to a less important mention en passant within an article? Some guidance and constructive assistance would be appreciated at Juan Williams. Especially from women editors who may have a perspective on this that is not currently reflected in the article. See: Talk:Juan Williams. Thank you. Davidpatrick (talk) 16:23, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

For a point of reference, the charge of sexual harassment against Bill Clinton by Paula Jones consumes less space in his enormous WP article than what Davidpatrick had for the much smaller Juan Williams article. And the Clinton accusations obviously had far more new coverage than the Williams accusations, was a more serious charge, and it went through multiple courts, including the Supreme Court. Drrll (talk) 17:01, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

For a more apposite point of reference, the sexual harassment issue relating to Bill O'Reilly consumes 139 words and has its own sub-heading within the part of the article to which the topic pertains. The sexual harassment issue relating to Juan Williams as it has been pruned has been reduced to 109 words and has no sub-heading at all. It is buried in the section. I am prepared to accept that the version I thought was appropriate is too long by that frame of reference - and should be closer in length to that in the Bill O'Reilly article. And, by the same standard, should have the deleted sub-heading reinstated. However condensed, it should certainly ensure that both perspectives on the matter are presented, not just one side of the matter. Davidpatrick (talk)

17:43, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Not an admin, but I have been following this from the sidelines since Williams was fired by NPR: I think that signaling out perceived bad behavior with any type of heading- when it could just as well be incorporated into the bio- is going to be contentious. With BLP's, I prefer to see stuff like this incorporated into the overall bio, the exception being if the subject had publicly denied or contested the information, in which case BOTH sides of the issue could be included in a stand-alone section. But this is just my preference, not a consensus that I am aware of. The Eskimo (talk) 18:24, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Those are good points. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with a neutrally-worded sub-heading. Drrll (talk) 18:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Michelle Wie

Resolved

 – semi protected, policy violating IP blocked Off2riorob (talk) 18:39, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

• Michelle Wie (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - NeiljohnsonB2 (talk · contribs) is adding the nickname "Bubbles" to the infobox sourced to this; the nickname is contained in the readers' posts not the text itself. I have reverted twice as WP:BLP states that "posts left by readers are never acceptable as sources", user has undone my revert. January ^talk 19:40, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No, as you say, that is not a WP:RS. I removed it again and left the user a note informing him the cite is not WP:RS and a link to this discussion. Off2riorob (talk) 19:42, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Lynndie England

• Lynndie England (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Is it just me, or is placing three images of Abu Ghraib abuse on this page an unnecessary insult? I'm not sure that any pictures of her is not a violation of her personality rights; thoughts? Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:55, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I see no evidence that any use of these pictures in an article about the individual themself could possibly be violation of personality rights. What would lead you to believe this, exactly? Hipocrite (talk) 20:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I should have said privacy rights. Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

We are not invading the privacy of someone whose picture was featured in articles at Marie Claire, the BBC, the Army Times.... Hipocrite (talk) 23:59, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, putting three pictures of Abu Ghraib abuse stretches the boundaries of good taste. While opinions differ on how work-safe Wikipedia should be, there's no need to flagrantly offend people's sensibilities. This is not a BLP issue, however - England's ties to the scandal are very well known. Best resolved at the relevant talk page. Ray^Talk 14:58, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

American Council on Science and Health

Eyes open please for BLP issues on American Council on Science and Health (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), there being something of a ruckus oing no within its power structure. Guy (Help!) 20:02, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Pankaj Mishra

'Controversies' section sourced to a weblog and two news articles. The news articles do not mention the subject of the article. May need page protection as I've removed the offending text countless times and IPs continue to add it. — goethean ॐ 00:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

See Chittisinghpura massacre, and compare Mishra's persistent claims regarding purported "Hindu conspiracy" in the massacre with recent developments establishing Pakistani involvement. Mishra's polemical rants have largely been debunked as libel and fraud, and have profound geopolitical implications wrt the War on terror. Islamist and anti-American sympathizers have been regularly touting Mishra's bogus claims in Jihadist websites (and linking to his wp article as "proof" of his credentials). In light of these issues, his positions regarding the chittisinghpura massacre need to be stated in the article for balance, although, of course, sourcing should be kept consistent so as to not violate any policies (which is why I supported the removal of a paragraph in the article that was unsourced opinion).117.194.197.109 (talk) 00:30, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Blogs are never a reliable source for anything, let alone a BLP. See WP:SPS. Additionally, your use of news articles violates WP:SYNTH. The geopolitical issues that you bring up have zero relevance to Wikipedia policy. — goethean ॐ 00:37, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

"Blogs" are considered reliable if they quote a published source correctly (in this case, Mishra himself). In any case, Sepia Mutiny (the "blog" in question) is a fact-checked source that documents numerous political and social issues with the South Asian diaspora in the United States, is well established in the community, and has already been used as a reliable source multiple times on wikipedia when its claims suited the agenda of the pro-Islamist crowd currently editing the Mishra article. It's only when they report the fraudulent libel of one of the doyens of the Jihadist underground that they suddenly become a "non-RS". remarkable, that.117.194.197.109 (talk) 00:45, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you calling me pro-Islamist? — goethean ॐ 01:29, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Dick Wagner, American Rock Musician

The initial paragraph about Dick Wagner states his date of birth as being born December 14, 1943, in Oelwein, Iowa. The year is incorrect. It should be 1942.

I am Dick Wagner's official archivist and webmaster for wagnermusic.com. He has asked me to get this corrected.

Thank you, Don Richard Drakmar (talk) 05:00, 29 October 2010 (UTC) Webmaster & Archivist for Dick Wagner www.wagnermusic.com designer@wagnermusic.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drakmar (talk • contribs) 04:59, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

The best thing to do then is to add that date to his official web site, http://www.wagnermusic.com/biography.htm for example, that would be a Verifiable source. --GRuban (talk) 15:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Rand Paul et al.

• Rand Paul (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and United States Senate election in Kentucky, 2010 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - There has been some contentious editing, close to edit warring, on some Senate candidate BLPs in recent days, especially this one. I believe that there is a consensus to move all the issues and controversies, which are not directly related to one or another candidate, to some place in the campaign article, in a general election sub-section, rather than their biographies. Mistakes, past errors of the candidates, and the like, directly related to the person, should remain on their biographical articles. Am I correct? Bearian (talk) 16:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Sharron Angle (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and United States Senate election in Nevada, 2010 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has a similar situation. Bearian (talk) 16:30, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Second the question, as it is my understanding based on work with WP:USPE that this is the general consensus of that workgroup. When an article exists on an individual separately notable campaign, as opposed to on an election or candidate, that is the most preferred, with the election being the backup. JJB 16:33, 29 October 2010 (UTC) (ec)I agree. And so does Jimbo when asked about "political silly season." BLPs are not to be used as campaign vehicles for or against any candidate. Collect (talk) 16:35, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe neutrality means Wikipedians should not be trying to tie the BLPs concerning politicians too closely to their respective campaigns. But having said that if an opposing politician or campaign is tying the article subject to something controversial associated with his or her campaign, rigorous deletion of the material should be done judiciously since such deletion would be clearly opposed by the opposing campaign. It's not just some drive-by Wiki vandal that wants it in. If a campaign worker did something outrageous and the politician distanced himself or herself from the campaign worker, it should presumptively not be included in the politician's article. But if the politician has not distanced himself or herself and it is not just a few pundits that are making an issue out of it but the opposing campaign as well, I believe it should presumptively go in. An outrageous action by an employee might go into the BLP of a CEO, for example, if it became an issue for that CEO's management reputation. The idea being to minimize Wikipedia's discretion such that Wikipedia doesn't end up the only entity trying to distance a politician from his or her campaign. Follow the secondary sources: there should be a secondary source (usually the politician him or herself) that holds the POV that the material is not directly related to the politician if Wikipedia is going to consider that POV the NPOV.Brian Dell (talk) 20:34, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality is a fine thing. Unfortunately, one set of Rand Paul supporters justifies their repeated deletion of the "stomping" incident from Rand Paul with a claim that it belongs in the less widely-read campaign article. When the "stomping" is moved to the campaign article, a different Rand Paul supporter has now deleted it twice. This is a newsworthy event generating press stories on a daily basis. betsythedevine (talk) 14:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I have blocked the vandal for edit warring (this is his third block so I made it for three months), and semi-protected the page for three days. Bearian (talk) 16:00, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming

There's a discussion on the talk page about the selection criteria, but I'm concerned that there may be BLP problems in what is in any case a contentious subject. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 16:36, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear about my concern. It's simply that from looking at the talk page the criteria is being discussed, and that a suggestion being discussed is ".For the purposes of this list, qualification as a scientist is reached by publication of at least one peer-reviewed article in their lifetime in a broadly construed area of "natural sciences". The article need not have been written in recent years nor be in a field relevant to climate." Is that enough, or do we need reliable sources for each name in the list that they are indeed 'scientists opposing the mainstream' etc.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 06:38, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Martin McGartland

Resolved

 – new user notified of article restrictions (the troubles) and general wiki guidelines and policies Off2riorob (talk) 18:25, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

user:CEDAP needs help at Martin McGartland (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Thanks. Guy (Help!) 21:46, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I am speaking as someone who has reverted his attempt to rewrite the lead. Most of his edit is point-of-view and grammatically inaccurate - "one of their most trusted agents", "an intrinsical member of the IRA active service unit", "He is credited by the British Intelligence", "chronicling his life during these troubled times". Any changes to the article can happily be discussed on the article's talk page. O Fenian (talk) 21:59, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

What help do they need? Mo ainm~Talk 22:32, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Accusation against a living journalist working for major media – untrue story by unreliable journalist

In the comment given here [21] "untrue story by unreliable journalist, inappropriate for the lead, and comic hilarity isn't justification for an unexplained misinterpretation of one email". This statement, connected directly to the article used as a reference, should probably be removed by an administrator (only asking for removal of the statement given in the Comments field - unhappily I've not admin rights here, so I can not do it). Nsaa (talk) 20:35, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:SOURCES requires us to consider the reputation of the source, including the author, for fact checking and accuracy. Jonathan Leake is well known as a polemicist attacking climatic scientists, and in one example his story was the subject of an official complaint to the Press Complaints Commission by a leading scientist,[22] following which Leake's publisher retracted the story.[23][24](copy of retraction) As reported in a blog reporting expert opinion, other errors have been noted,[25] and objections raised.[26] Regarding the specific story cited, the claim that "scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based" is blatant nonsense – as official inquiries have found, the UEA does not hold raw temperature data, that is archived by other organisations which allow the UEA use of the data. In at least some cases, the archiving organisations do not allow the UEA to store or pass on the data. . . dave souza, talk 22:07, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

None off the sources support your claim "untrue story by unreliable journalist" and I still Think this unsourced edit comment should be removed per WP:BLP (note, I'm only asking for removal of The comment, not The edit in itself. Nsaa (talk) 17:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Joan McAlpine

Resolved

 – Vandalism removed. Netalarm^talk 23:07, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

That's great, very impressed with the speed of wiki editor's intervention —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bruichlady (talk • contribs) 15:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Joan McAlpine (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I am not used to wiki and have registered soley to correct the defamatory remarks on this entry. Someone is posting comments about this person claiming the Daily Mail is a source. These comments are completely defamatory and were not reported in The Daily Mail at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bruichlady (talk • contribs)

Yup, you are correct. The vandalism was removed by another editor in under a minute. If this issue arise again, feel free to report it here so someone can take care of it, but most of the time vandalism is gone within a few minutes. Netalarm^talk 23:07, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Sean Parker

• Sean Parker (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Someone has added grafitti to the article about Sean Parker. 68.63.2.152 (talk) 23:46, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Chris_Hutchings

• Chris_Hutchings (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The page on Chris Hutchings is being vandalised by fans of Walsall Football Club who are concerned at his lack of competence. I can't edit the page because I'm new to Wikipedia and if I revert then I will undo the stats box. Can an experienced editor take a look at this please (and, by the way, the Saddlers' message board at which vandalism to this page is being discussed also mentions vandalism to the Walsall_F.C. page). Filmfanman (talk) 06:53, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, ill have a little look. Off2riorob (talk) 12:53, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

jehmu greene: Please delete this bio

• Jehmu Greene (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This wiki is clearly self-promotional, makes many spurious claims and is not a justified inclusion.

(above unsigned comment was by IP 165.124.162.246)

• You could attempt to have it removed using one of the methods listed in Wikipedia's Deletion Policy. However, it seems that the person who is the subject of the article in question has received a great deal of coverage over a long period of time, so it may well be that the article requires a substantial re-write and much better sourcing, rather than deletion, unless you can find another criterion under which to suggest its deletion. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 08:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

It is basically uncited, needs something...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jehmu-greene is about all I found. Off2riorob (talk) 13:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Tommy Sheridan

• Sheridan v News International (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• HM Advocate v Sheridan and Sheridan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Can other editors weigh in on this article, which I found via the Joan McAlpine link above? The Sheridan article needs lots of work, which I currently don't have time for, but I am also very concerned by the other two court case articles, one of which is largely unsourced and contains salacious claims about living people; the second, a perjury court case, is ongoing. These seem classic cases of WP:NOTNEWS and WP:COATRACK for negative information about a living person. What do others think? Maybe they should be merged to a cleaned-up Sheridan article. Slp1 (talk) 14:18, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to remove any unsourced material, particularly if it is "salacious".--Scott Mac 15:19, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Both these court cases have been very high-profile, and are surely notable. The first case took place 4 years ago, I think the article is stable. Both article seem accurate and well-sourced, I am not aware that they contain anything which has not received significant (and in many cases high-profile) coverage in the Scottish media alreday, if there are any specific problems please raise them on the relevant talk page. Merging them with the main article on Tommy Sheridan would not solve anything, and could just make the article over-long. Given the controversy surrounding him, we would still have to say quite a bit about these cases and ensure it followed NPOV, RS, no salaciousness. We cannot avoid having articles on people who have been the subject of controversial high-profile allegations about their personal lives e.g. Bill Clinton. As for the current trial, the judge explicitly warns the jury at the end of the day not to do any private research of their own, for example on the internet. PatGallacher (talk) 15:02, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I agree. These trials are not just passing new stories, they are headline news in Scotland over a long period, and are important for understanding the demise of an entire political movement and not just one political career. Frankly, if we sere deleting nonnotable court cases, I wouldn't start here. Pat is doing a good job, although lets keep the referencing solid, and the lurid stuff down to the minimum. I mean, group sex, swingers, liars and politics (allegedly)? What's not to be notable? --Scott Mac 15:19, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I have added the BLP flag to the talk page of both articles. See Lewinsky scandal as the sort of issue where, although we might need to be careful what we say, we can hardly avoid saying something. PatGallacher (talk) 15:21, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

That's fine; I really don't see the issue so much about notability as about BLP and V. There are large chunks these articles with very serious claims, made in great detail, and quotations, that are entirely unsourced, or linked to citations that go nowhere. It's good that Pat is taking things seriously, and so hopeful the problems can be sorted out soon. Scott Mac's advice is very good. If it can't be done soon, however, I suggest we consider a major prune and restore appropriate detail as time is available for proper sourcing. --Slp1 (talk) 18:18, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Link rot (see WP:LINKROT) may indeed be a problem with these articles and the main article on Tommy Sheridan, but that's a problem with a lot other articles. These articles do include serious claims, but they have been widely reported in reliable sources. A few weeks ago I did remove some links from the article on the 1st case which appear to have been taken down for legal reasons. I see a "sub judice" flag has been added to the talk page on the 2nd case. PatGallacher (talk) 19:19, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Rory Albanese

• Rory Albanese (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• username (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

In the article, this appears:

At a Jon Stewart appearance at Barnes & Noble, a video shows Albanese in a very heated verbal assault of Matt Meyer-a member of We Are Change NY. Later, after a barrage of unkind words Albanese physically assaulted Matt Meyer by punching him near the edge of his left jawbone-leaving quite the mark. [5] He was later arrested when police reviewed the videographic evidence. Subsequently, the assault charge led to the posting by Meyer on Youtube on October 28, 2010, a month after the attack.[6]

Source 5 has a link to the meetup group of which Meyer is a part, and Source 6 has a link to a YouTube video, which claims to show Albanese punching Meyer. A search on Google (including Google News) seems to have only sources that would be sympathetic to Meyer's views on 9/11 mention the incident. To me, the video is not very clear what is going on. The video seems to be divided into two sections: One inside a store, where a man comes in and starts shouting (though what he is saying is unclear on the video) and Jon Stewart says to hear him out. Then in the second section, the video shows two men egging each other on until one of them finally throws a punch. Does anyone have any reliable sources? --Cornince (talk) 14:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that these are not reliable sources for this information, and have removed the content pending proper sourcing, per BLP. --Slp1 (talk) 14:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Tareq Salahi

• Tareq Salahi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

There are several issues with this article. Focusing on one paragraph, I started some edits due to the issues below. Another editor reasonably disagreed with my edits, but instead of improving reverted them. The problem is all the original problems persist. I am sticking to BRD but the issues are potentially libellous and need attention, so I'm asking for more editors to take a look. The nuances center around the Washington Post article source stating allegations from a court filing by one party against another, and citing them as such, but these allegations have ended up in the BLP as statements of fact. Plus they are word for word taken from the source (except for the explanation "as alleged in legal filings").

Issues in current second paragraph of “Oasis Winery” section:

Issue 1: Word for word plagiarism. WaPo: In the following years, he started calling "himself 'president' of the Company and 'owner' of the winery, although he never held more than a 5 % minority interest," WikiP: In the following years, Tareq started calling "himself 'president' of the Company and 'owner' of the winery, although he never held more than a 5% minority interest.

Issue 2: Reporting of points as fact when in WaPo they are clearly stated not as facts, but statements from a court filing. In a stunning feat, the wiki article manages to plagiarize without even saying the same thing, by dropping “According to his parents’ lawsuit” from the end of the above quote in issue 1.

Issue 3. Near word for word plagiarism. WaPo: Tareq also began operating a new business out of the vineyard, Oasis Enterprises, which included a limo operation, wine country tours and an events-and-catering business. Around 1999, according to his parents' lawsuit, he "diverted" a "substantial amount" of the vineyard's wine to Oasis Enterprises and had not paid the vineyard back. WikiP: Tareq also began operating a new business out of the vineyard, Oasis Enterprises, which was developed to raise ancillary income as a venue for polo events and other functions such as weddings. Oasis Enterprises included a limo operation, wine country tours, and an events-and-catering business. Around 1999 Tareq "diverted" a "substantial amount" of the vineyard's wine to Oasis Enterprises and had not paid the vineyard back

Issue 4: Reporting of points as fact when in WaPo they are clearly stated not as facts, but statements from a court filing. The difference in #3 is that WikiP does not use “according to his parents’ lawsuit” 96.247.118.213 (talk) 17:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

This discussion so far has gone against the IP though more eyes are needed. I haven't ignored the comments at all, I've tried to explain them. The use of the Washington Post to make the comments made are wrong to make and another source is required to make claims that Tariq Salahi lied about things. It is not up to me to find the sources, it's up to the editor who states them. On the talk page so far, my comments are agreed to. Rob comments that this is here but if I remember correctly he doesn't give an opinion on things. Also, I am concerned with sock puppetry. This IP is a Verizon account which is what an editor who is stalking me uses. I think that from the comments mado so far, that the duck test shows I may not be wrong. I don't have enough to take to SPI or I would but this too needs sorting. Thanks for listening. I would have commented earlier but the IP didn't tell me that this was here even though the IP came to my talk page about this very same problem [27]. Something is wrong here, I hope it's me but well... --CrohnieGal^Talk 19:16, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Edits from this ISP follow exactly the pattern of the banned sock puppets of SRQ. The above editor is correct. Need more eyes here. DocOfSoc (talk) 19:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

George S. Livanos

There is no Countess Kasa-Hunyady, that's a scam, but don't know what is true and what is fake in the article.It needs the attention of an expert.

• George S. Livanos (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• username (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Replace this with a brief explanation of the situation. Csesznekgirl (talk) 18:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if this article could be a candidate for deletion. It's rare that we do that for billionaires, but if Mr. Livanos has been as private as the article suggests, to the point where there's even confusion over his name, then it might be best to respect his privacy and delete the article. Ray^Talk 14:54, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Dilma Rousseff

• Dilma Rousseff (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article is beign subject of vadalism. Dilma is the elected president of Brazil, and this probably is being made by one non supporter. I recommend to limit edition of it.
plavius.

Rick Scott

Material relating to Columbia/HCA is covered at length in the BLP. An IP insists, however, on inserting a section in the lede duplicating material in the section. [28] and asserting that it is "censorship" to not have extensive coverage in the lede as well as in the article. I consider it a matter of simple common sense that WP articles are not campaign literature for or against anyone, and inserting the duplicate material is thus improper in any article. Will foolks kindly weigh in? Collect (talk) 10:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I had a look. Someone else is now deleting the entirety of the discussion about the Columbia/HCA issues later in the article. I have reverted this, but the article might benefit from some sort of protection. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 10:50, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

BTW, all I had done was revert to the exact same status you reverted to :). The only "edit war" was from the IP. Collect (talk) 11:29, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't really see a problem with the IP's edits. Your characterization is incomplete: he/she is also adding detail to a later section, and the material added to the lead is a concise summary of a later section, not a duplication. So even in regard to the lead I don't see anything inappropriate. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:49, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A user has been insisting on have a NPOV template on the top of this article for the last two years, adding the template are his only edits to the article for the last two years. After questioning he has stated the whole article needs re written for the template to be removed. He is imo setting standards on the article that are greater than we apply to our articles in general. The article was featured and is now only a good article and imo easily meets that standard. I would like to resolve the template but his demands of a rewrite are extreme. His insistence is a labeling of a more or less decent article as biased. I would like to get a few users comments about the article in an attempt to resolve the disputed template. No article should be unduly labeled for such a length of time and that is not what the templates are for. Recent discussion about the template is on the talkpage here. Do users consider the article to be so poor and biased to benefit from the template ( if it is please specify the most offending content so it can be improved) and is it so biased as to require a complete re write. Off2riorob (talk) 13:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The complaint is that the article reads like a hagiography, and after a superficial reading I agree with that. It reads as if it was based on something written by her PR team. All her achievements and honours seem to be made explicit, while you must read between the lines to get an idea of how controversial she was as prime minister.Hans Adler 15:27, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Are there specific sections that you see as being very poor in this respect? Off2riorob (talk) 15:29, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Michael Welner Page

• Michael Welner (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• username (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

There have been several edits made to the wiki page “Michael Welner”. Activity on the page has risen in tandem with Michael Welner’s role in the Khadr trial, Beyond the overt acts of vandalism in which one Khadr advocate went as far as to call Dr. Welner an “an awfull jackass”; there have been edits to the page that reflect more diplomatic advocacy – absent any real contribution to the page. I hope to clear it up with the posting below. What’s going on is people who are real advocates are attempting to sabotage the page and they will continue to do so. In order to prevent the page from becoming a forum for Khadr advocates to spout their disapproval and vicious libel, I respectfully ask that you restrict the page from outside edits beyond those of your editorial staff. The paragraphs below, which I have included on the page, updates the page objectively and informatively.Stewaj7 (talk) 16:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused. Your edits to that page today amount to this. What exactly is the problem that you are unable to resolve through discussion at that article's talk page? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

JORDAN HALSMAN

I would like to report abuse to the attached site ref. Jordan Halsman. This has been going on since yesterday with the person below changing all the correct details to absolute nonsense. Can you please block this person from any further use.

I will edit to correct information

(cur | prev) 17:24, 1 November 2010 Steven1875 (talk | contribs) (2,670 bytes) (undo) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.168.117.142 (talk)

Will likely need to be semi-protected. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:10, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

How do you do this ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.219.229.44 (talk) 22:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tani_Cantil-Sakauye

• Template:Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tani Cantil-Sakauye
• Template:96.247.18.129

I removed this line... Electioneering "She has voted to raise wages to staffers to the tune of $1MM, 3.5% as quoted by the Sacramento Bee, let's kick her out of office."

And made some biographical changes, removing her job a card dealer and extraneous biographical information about other people. The card dealer job was only a matter of months. This is was excessive detail combined with her other experience. Also I added some current committee positions and responsibilities.

Chai Ling

Chai Ling (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

There is much debate on Chai Ling’s Wikipedia talk page, including claims that are repeatedly appearing on the main article page, which are not in line with Wikipedia’s policy on biographies of living persons. The issues raised vary from criticism of her role in Tiananmen to inappropriate attacks on her personal life.

Most of the negative references tie back to the website: http://www.tsquare.tv, which one could argue should not be used as a reference source as it is a website run by those involved in the conflict with Chai Ling and the articles referenced either are an obvious attempt at character assassination or they violate copyright laws (http://www.tsquare.tv/film/harvard.html) Furthermore, some of the users posting negative materials are posting from China and are under active investigation by Wikipedia. It is therefore likely that they are attempts by the Chinese government to defame people who are friends with the recent Nobel Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo.

Wikipedia is an open forum for discussion and such comments are likely to continue to be posted until there is a significant cultural shift in China. However, readers should be urged to exercise their judgement when reading biased statements and to be understanding when some material is removed because of its open defamation of character. Chai Ling has committed her life to improving conditions in China, and is an accomplished business woman, as evidenced by her career history. It would not be just to leave false accusations and misquotations in such a public forum.

Please could Wikipedia act within its policy and remit, in order to ensure that repeated offenders are appropriately restricted from placing slander on the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aurora07 (talk • contribs) 00:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

This is this users first post....interesting!

KoshVorlon' _Nal^uboutes _Aeria ^Gloris 18:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• - Article is a bit poor, I made a few edits in an attempt to improve it and as such it is added to my watchlist. Off2riorob (talk) 19:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Shahrzad Mir-Gholikhan

Resolved

 – wrong location to decide notable or not. - Off2riorob (talk) 15:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

That "Fair and Balanced"(tm) "source" Press TV has brought up the case of Shahrzad Mir-Gholikhan.

Ref: http://payvand.com/news/09/mar/1120.html

Is she notable yet? Hcobb (talk) 03:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• - This is not really the location to ask if someone is notable. You can ask at Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard or read WP:BIO AND WP:GNG - Off2riorob (talk) 15:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

List page about BLPs at AFD

Resolved

 – Not really a BLP issue, and seems likely to die at AFD anyway.--Scott Mac 18:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Honorary Guides of the Raëlian Movement. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 04:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Cirt. This page does concern me as it appears that many haven't accepted this nomination and that labelling them as honorary guides of a UFO movement is a BLP violation, we can't ascribe a religious belief to BLPs on the basis of them being nominated as guides by that belief.Dougweller (talk) 08:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Eh, anyone can honor anyone else with anything they want, and the honoree can accept or reject it. I only think it's a BLP problem if we don't make the unidirectional nature of the relationship clear. Jclemens (talk) 18:46, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

New Life Fellowship Association

This page is being repeatedly edited with malicious and false information about me (Victor Nazareth) and my family members: Pastor S Joseph (father-in-law), Ian Hendricks (brother-in-law), Naomi J Hendricks (sister-in-law). I have once again expunged the contentious text. Not only is it factually incorrect, it seeks to defame us and impute to us motives that are mere conjecture. You can clearly see that the text is not in keeping with the spirit of your site.

I strongly suggest that this page be shut down as it adds little or no value to wikepedia. I understand that there has been a warning placed on this page but now request that action be taken and the page pulled off your site.

Thanks for considering this,

Victor Nazareth (vnazareth@gmail.com)— Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.161.179.203 (talk • contribs) 09:39, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

There have been some problems on this page. I've restored what appears to be the latest sourced version which I believe has no BLP violations. Dougweller (talk) 09:48, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I've taken the additional step of semi-protecting it. We've had persistent BLP violations and failed to spot and revert then. There's no way the subjects should have to continue to put up with that failure.--Scott Mac 13:57, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Gary Herbert

Gary Herbert (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Article about a politician is a long term site for edit warring. The question I have regards the controversy section--it's all sourced, but the article in general could use some more attention re: neutrality check. JNW (talk) 19:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Benyamin Netanyahu BLP violation?

Benjamin_Netanyahu (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Some users claim the information added here:[29] is a BLP violation, and it has now been removed from the article.

Source is Haaretz, its a direct quote, attributed to who said it.

Is it a BLP violation? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 20:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• - Its just an insulting attack with no informative or educational value at all .. Yes, imo it is a BLP violation, whether it is cited or quoted or gold plated. Off2riorob (talk) 20:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Its not an insulting attack, its the White House spokesman describing Netanyahu according to his pov. Could you please show me what text at WP:BLP this information violates? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 20:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

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, and the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment.

• - I don't think obnoxious liar, cheat, liar, complies in any way does it. Off2riorob (talk) 21:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

This quote is not a "titillating claim" that Lockhart said it, it is a reliable quote from a notable person. Its not a "claim" that he said it. How is the information not conservatively and how is it a "tabloid" or "sensationalist"? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 21:09, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Supreme, don't be absurd. It's an insulting, scurillous attack and we are not going to reprint it. Also, do not forum shop - I'm sure you can find people at Talk:Benjamin Netanyahu who will explain to you at length what words like "conservative" and "titillating" and "tabloid" mean, assuming you do not already, given your previous encounters with our BLP policy. Ray^Talk 21:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec)reply to user Supreme Deliciousness - I can't help you any more than I have, feel free to wait for more comments. Off2riorob (talk) 21:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• While Lockhart may have written these words, there are two big problems I see with their use in the article:

1. The quote is taken out of context, so we have no idea why Lockhart might have described Netanyahu this way.
2. Because this is presented as a pull quote, it not only prevents the use of prose to add the necessary context, but it gives the quote undue emphasis.

While it's generally best to use secondary and tertiary sources, in this case I find myself wanting to see the original source—Lockhart's book—to see if there's any context there that might redeem this quote. (Also, while Lockhart's book would be a primary source about Lockhart, to the extent that he discusses Netanyahu it might be a secondary source, but it's impossible to say without seeing it.) // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 03:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Ralph Watts

Ralph Watts (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Can someone familiar with political biographies check Ralph Watts' quotes and issues sections? They are all well-sourced, but seem intended to turn his article into a political attack page. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I know nothing about US politics, but that version was an outrageous hatchet-job. I've reverted back to an earlier one, removing half of the article in the process. Can someone else watch list this, I expect the pov pushers will be back.--Scott Mac 22:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look at it. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:34, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Michael Spiegel

• Michael Spiegel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I strongly suspect that a Wikipedia page about me was created during the 2008 Presidential campaign by people who wanted to sensationalize the William Ayers "paling-around-with-terrorists" claim against Obama. It is clearly biased, focuses on one part of my life 40 years ago, and contains inaccurate information, some of which should be considered a violation of your privacy standards, at the least. Since the time period discussed in the article, I have become a civil rights attorney, I have worked on some notable cases of public interest, and have other achievements which may or may not merit discussion on a page about me. To the extent that there is information on the existing page which you think belongs in Wikipedia, and is accurate and sourced, I do not object to it. What I propose is that you immediately take down the page, and work with me to put up another one that complies with your standards. I have read your BLP policies, and I am not interested in self-promotion, but I would like to create a fair, balanced and accurate page about me if there is going to be one. Mikespieg (talk)

Now at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Spiegel. -- Cirt (talk) 10:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Stubified article pending result of AfD. J04n(talk page) 15:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Cork's 96FM and Neil Prenderville

• Cork's 96FM (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• 193.189.67.202 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This info was inserted into Cork's 96FM this morning on the back of a breaking news story where a radio stations leading DJ has hit the headlines for some pretty negative reasons on a flight from London. The story has been corroborated and the individual himself issued an apology on air. From what I can make out, at the time of the incident, Prenderville was operating in a private capacity. I'm not sure if this adds to the article on the station as it is about the individual and I feel could be counted as a sourced attack however I am hesitant to remove such well sourced info as per WP:NOTCENSORED. I would appreciate some third party input. GainLine ♠ _♥ 11:52, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree removal could be seen as censorship. Its really a single report repeated in the other cite, if the comment remains as it is and is not expanded unduly then it is borderline for inclusion. It is not exactly headline news in major international publications and wikipedia wouldn't want to be the primary dissemination of such information about a person who is actually not Wikipedia notable...thoughts? Off2riorob (talk) 14:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The incident is probably only receiving coverage because it so is sensational, I'm not sure it is deserving of attention in the article unless the individual loses his job because of it. I really don't see how the controversy relates to the radio station and this seems to be introducing negative material for the sake of it GainLine ♠ _♥ 16:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I've semi-protected it for a week. Fences&Windows 23:47, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I've boldly gone ahead and removed the section. I have moved the references used to the talk page (but without a references section) so that they are readily available for reinsertion if that's what's decided. I have no problem with someone or someones arguing for its reinsertion in the article if that's seen as warranted. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, seems reasonable. Thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 00:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Tranches: a new way to patrol BLPs

Please visit the page below and consider adopting one of the 100 lists of 5000 BLPs by putting your signature at the end of the corresponding line.

The idea is to get every single edit to a known BLP patrolled, even the articles that are not otherwise watched.

To patrol recent changes to the articles, click on the "related changes" link for your chosen list. Diffs can be inspected in the usual way; it's not unlike a normal watchlist. Start at the bottom and work your way up.

The lists will be refreshed regularly to account for changes in the content of the living persons category.

• User:Tony Sidaway/Living people/tranches

Tasty monster (=TS ) 13:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Arthur Alan Wolk

User Lawrencewarwick is working with Arthur Wolk on the Arthur Alan Wolk article: see [30] and [31].

The same user is deleting information about notable court cases from the Arthur Wolk article. He claims that this violates living persons policy because blogs are cited, but no blogs are cited, just journalist Jacob Sullum, reliably-sourced newspaper articles, and court decisions.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arthur_Alan_Wolk&diff=prev&oldid=394556114

But Lawrencewarwick's edits turn the article into a press release. That does not seem right. I looked up Arthur Alan Wolk after reading about his unsuccessful lawsuit, and there was nothing in the article about what seemed like a notable internet lawsuit. (I use this account name because I don't want Wolk to sue me, too!)

Can a third party help resolve this dispute? Thank you!

Why all the primary court reports? If this issue is actually noteworthy their will be independent reports about the issues and we can report on those reports.  ? The content is overly primary cited to legal docs and it overly legalistic in detail resulting in this jargon bloated court report. Off2riorob (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The primary court reports are supplements to the secondary sources that discuss the primary court reports. I cited to the primary source for the most neutral and complete explanation. I am happy to collaborate on edits.

Should I cite to the Overlawyered post that was the subject of the lawsuti? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boo the puppy (talk • contribs) 16:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

If you want to keep it, I would suggest trimming it to the bones and supporting it with two or three of the strongest secondary citations. Others may disagree, I have a dislike for publishing primary court reports as that as I see it is beyond our remit. Off2riorob (talk) 16:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Is it really independantly notable? Apart from the person that wrote the blog is it covered in major publications? Off2riorob (talk) 17:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It's been covered in Reason (magazine), The Legal Intelligencer, and Philadelphia Business Journal, all of which are cited.

You say "trim it to the bones," but the section discusses three notable court cases, and devotes only two or three sentences to each. What is fat? Boo the puppy (talk) 17:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, reason magazine is not a bad magazine but it is not a mainline major publication and we have few links, about 50 to it from our BLP articles., the same could be said of the other two. Off2riorob (talk) 17:06, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I am guessing, you have a legal background? I am thinking that as this content is in your field so to speak that is why it appears noteworthy? Wikipedia is not read by legal experts and as such is not written by legal experts.Off2riorob (talk) 17:07, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Reason is major. "The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune." That's bigger circulation than The New Republic. The writer of the Reason article, Jacob Sullum, is a notable journalist. I read about the lawsuit in Reason, read about Wolk's threat to sue Reason for writing about the lawsuit, and looked up Arthur Wolk on the Internet, and was surprised to see a press release written by an associate of Wolk masquerading as a Wikipedia article. I don't understand what you consider to be "legal expert" about what was written. Can you read the two short Reason articles, and compare and tell me where I can make things clearer? Boo the puppy (talk) 17:15, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Reason is not major at all. And Sullum's comments are all primary reports that don't assert any independent notability at all. I like press releases, I like neutral reports, we are not here to add a bunch of negative legal primary dockets that the bot removes and minor issues reported as if major. I would suggest that from your editing contributions that you would benefit from reading WP:COI - Off2riorob (talk) 17:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The addition by Boo the puppy "Unsuccessful libel plantiff" is not noteworthy at all and should be removed from the article... too much space (about 1/3 of the page) is devoted to a liabel lawsuit that was dismissed because of a 1 year statute of limitation law - how is that noteworthy isn't that a very minor issue? It set no legal precedent and is not relevant. Six (6) of the 8 citations in this section are to Jacob Sullum's blog on Reason Magazine the whole section is about Sullum's comments. Furthermore Boo the puppy says I am an associate of Arthur Wolk which is not true I wrote the article because I'm interested in air safety issues and from seaching the internet found he is an expert in air safety and aviation law I called him and asked if I could write an article for Wikipedia ... Also Boo says Wolk unsuccessfully sought the impeachment of a Judge there is no citation for this and in fact the judge later recanted her criticism of Wolk. I don't understand Boo the puppy's agenda ... why such a big deal about a lawsuit being dismissed for filing too late? Is it appropriate for me to delete Boo's edits or should I leave the descision to other editors? My agenda is I admire Arthur Wolk and am very unhappy that such weight is given to a conflict he is having with bloggers, please advise me as to what steps should be taken LEW (talk) 21:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

You go ahead as you are aware of the level of actual notability, I supported trimming it right back to the bones myself. Off2riorob (talk) 21:39, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Anyone interested in working on these articles should be aware of this recent lawsuit, where Wolk has requested IP addresses. As a defendant in the case people are talking about, and as a defendant in another case where Arthur Wolk has accused me of "inciting" people to write about the case, I request that you please do not write about this case without Arthur Wolk's permission. I make this request so that Arthur Wolk knows that if you write about this case, you do so against my wishes, and that I cannot be held legally responsible for anything you write. My apologies for this message. THF (talk) 15:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani

• Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Maria Rohaly (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Someone continuously tampers with the article on Sakineh Ashtiani in a way that spreads libelous information about a living person who is in fact fighting an unjust execution sentence in Iran. Most specifically, someone continues to include text that says that Sakineh Ashtiani was convicted of murder. Ms. Ashtiani was never convicted of murder; she was exonerated on the charge of murdering her husband and in fact another person was convicted for that crime.

When the Islamic Republic faced opposition to Sakineh's stoning sentence for adultery, they sought then to convince the world that she was instead a murderer, so that they could hang her instead (which tends to meet less political resistance than stoning) for a crime on which basis other countries also execute people (murder). The continuous inclusion of Islamic Republic fabrications to smear the name of Sakineh Astiani is unacceptable in any case, not least in the situation where this woman is fighting for her life.

Sincerely,

Maria Rohaly Coordinator, Mission Free Iran http://missionfreeiran.org <e-mail redacted>. Maria Rohaly (talk) 17:51, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Steven Seagal

The introduction to Steven Seagal's biography contains several uses of profanity.

• Steven Seagal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Cnnjnnbnn (talk) 22:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Just normal vandalism, since reverted. Black Kite (t) (c) 22:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Dan Severn

Dan Severn (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

NPOV issue with this article:

"The future of this renaissance man is unlimited."

"Severn easily established his place among the best fighters in the world with his awesome competitive fire to be the best."

"Severn has also had more of desire to do films"

"...dominating his opponents to capture the tournament championship at UFC 5: Return of the Beast."

nameless314 76.112.210.182 (talk) 00:55, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to be bold next time and make the changes yourself; I just went through and did a first pass. I'm currently moving around the references. I'm sure this could use more work, too--so more eyes is more better. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Joel Monaghan

• Joel Monaghan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The subject has been the subject of some fairly nasty rumours - which admittedly have now got some coverage in some fairly reputable newspapers. See the Sydney Morning Herald article here for example. I have deleted the offending edits and semi-protected the page—before I saw the SMH article—but given that there is now a reliable source for the allegation (but not the fact) someone else may wish to review what I have done. I stand by my edits given the seriousness of the rumours but would like some confirmation from others (or otherwise). Mattinbgn (talk) 05:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

John Beyer

John Beyer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

On 20th October, 31 August and 20 August "contentious material that is unsourced" was added to this page.(unsigned by User:217.44.124.228 - Off2riorob (talk) 11:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC))

• - Removed, you are also able to edit articles, please be bold in removing such uncited content in BLP articles. I also removed the picture as it was copyrighted .. actually he is not really notable enough for his own BLP and the content would be better merged to the Mediawatch-uk article but he appears to have retired last year .. I have added the merge template. 11:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)Off2riorob (talk)

Arash Ashkar's

• Arash Ashkar's (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• username (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The above-mentioned article lacks neutral point of view as it is obvious in all parts of the article. The article provides aesthetic opinions about the artist's artworks without mentioning any references. As you may see, the writer mentioned:"Arash Ashkar is one of the Minimal photographers who is very talented in this field" or somewhere else in the article:"He loves significant and meaningful art styles and he tries to create professional and effective photos" and in order to introduce some of the artist's artworks he/she mentioned:"Now here you can see some of his incredible art works" and it is obvious that these sentences are against NPOV (Neutral Point of View) which is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia. This article also is not verifiable and it is not attributable to any reliable published source. As a matter of fact the article is poorly sourced and the only sources mentioned in the article are the artist personal website and his personal profile in MyOpenid.com.

Gone via CSD A7. Interesting first edit by User:Pg326... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 12:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)