Talk:A Rape on Campus

"Debunked and retracted" or "retracted"?

• Debunked and retracted: It was investigated by a number of organizations who found the claims incredible. It would be misleading to claim the article was simply "retracted." I'm not seeing the BLP issue. D.Creish (talk) 04:45, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

• @D.Creish: According to this article, Rolling Stone retracted a line from the original statement they had put out that implied Jackie had intentionally misled them: "Our trust in [Jackie] was misplaced." The Rolling Stone has been criticized by multiple sources for that line. A few days later (after all relevant journalists had already read the statement and written their first reactions, Rolling Stone quietly retracted that line. It's still not in the statement on their website as of today.

A NYT article quoted the police chief as saying they were "not able to conclude to any substantive degree that an incident occurred..." And he also said they were "suspending, but not closing, the investigation, and he left open the possibility that some kind of assault might have occurred, saying additional information could still come to light."

Note: He did not say that Jackie fabricated the story or that it wasn't true. In fact, they left the case open and only suspended the investigation. Jackie's full name and other personal information were posted online without her permission at some point during all of this, so WP:BLP definitely applies.

WP:BLP says:

When writing about a person noteworthy only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems - even when the material is well sourced. When in doubt, biographies should be pared back...Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization.

It's not in good faith with WP:BLP to continue using terms like "hoax," "debunked" and "fabricated" since they're either based on a criticized and retracted statement by the Rolling Stone and/or reporter bias. The police chief is the expert in terms of the veracity of Jackie's story and, according to numerous reliable tertiary sources (including the ones linked above), all he said was that 2 years after-the-fact they weren't able to find enough evidence for a conviction. They didn't close the case and they're open to the possibility that more evidence could arise. When in doubt, pare back. Permstrump (talk) 06:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Several of the claims have been shown to be counter-factual, the majority of reliable sources dismiss the account and the article does not identify "Jackie" by name. I'd like to wait for more input meanwhile your post on Talk:Feminism is inappropriate notification (see WP:CANVASS.) I suggest removing it. D.Creish (talk) 07:58, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

This article is covered under WP:Feminism and I didn't share my opinion, just asked people to weigh in. So I think that's a perfectly appropriate notification. There are infinite sources that talk about how victims of trauma frequently frequently give inconsistent reports. And sources show that witnesses and victims alike are poor historians and often remember things differently from how they actually happened. Reporters aren't reliable sources on the credibility of her claim. They're just an opinion. The police chief is the expert. Permstrump (talk) 08:11, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

@D.Creish: FYI I thought I had commented in WP:Feminism, so I did move the notification as it didn't make sense on the feminism article. There are also plenty of sources that criticize the sources calling it a hoax. Plus like I said in my longer comment above and cited my source, the journalists who said "debunked" and "hoax" did so before Rolling Stone amended their statement, so that language was a reaction to a line in an article that has since been silently retracted without the typical acknowledgement at the beginning of the article. Anyone still using that kind of loaded terminology based it on the original statement, other news reports based on the original statement or is giving their opinion. Per WP:BLP we should give the living person the benefit of the doubt while we're waiting for consensus. Permstrump (talk) 15:40, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

The statement is about the article as a whole though, not about specific claims made in the article. It's important to convey the fact that Rolling Stones didn't merely retract the article of its own accord due to some follow up investigations it did, but that outside reporters exposed the article's weaknesses and forced them to retract the article in view of the overwhelming evidence (they first defended their article and investigation). So 'debunked' or something similar like 'discredited' must be included before mention is made of the retraction. Cenarium (talk) 17:06, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

@Cenarium: I agree that it's important to make it clear that Rolling Stone's journalistic integrity in this situation was discredited. BLP says if something might be controversial or there's contradictory evidence, to "refrain from using pithy descriptors or absolutes and instead use more explanatory information." Therefore I think the wording needs be more deliberate so it's clear what exactly was discredited. As it stands, some areas of the article are vague, others seem to specifically imply that Jackie was lying. I'll think about it and reply again with some alternatives. Permstrump (talk) 17:18, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting the notification. As Cenarium points out, the claims of "debunked" are based on outside investigation reported in a number of sources, rather than interpretations of Rolling Stone's official statement. D.Creish (talk) 06:33, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Short of rewording the whole sentence, discredited sounds more neutral than debunked. Now that I've read most of the rest of the article, there are much bigger problems with it, so I got distracted.

FYI for now I'm deleting a few things that weren't found in the sources cited. I'll wait a little bit for anyone else who cares to respond before changing to the word debunk to discredited. This article is ridiculously long, redundant and biased. Permstrump (talk) 04:45, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

"Discredited" seems fine. The article as it stands is NPOV-compliant and well-sourced. If you see it as "biased" I suggest you propose your edits there before changing the article. I reverted your last edit as the missing source was readily available. D.Creish (talk) 06:25, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

There are RS refs for "debunked" [1]. It seems seems fine. Capitalismojo (talk) 01:40, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a newspaper. Discredited sounds more neutral and less ambiguous. Permstrump (talk) 03:54, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia relies upon Reliable Source. This is both RS and decidedly unambigous. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:24, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

This wikipedia article is about the story "A Rape on Campus". That story was about a gang rape (since debunked) and the aftermath. The infobox now contains information that is now both inaccurate and unref'd. It states that the subject of the article is: "Irresponsible journalism reporting on an alleged gang rape at a fraternity at the University of Virginia". That is most definitely not the "subject" of the Rolling Stone article. That is counter-factual or confusing at best. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:24, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

The gang rape was NOT debunked. The article was discredited b/c the journalist and editor didn't do their due diligence. The criminal investigation was suspended. It was not closed or labeled "unfounded." See more explanation in the conversation above. Permstrump (talk) 03:10, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately for that theory we have multiple reliable sources saying "debunked". Opinions to the contrary, we follow Reliable Source here at Wikipedia. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:27, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I wrote this above, but I'll explain it again. The article you linked was written BEFORE Rolling Stone silently retracted a line from their original apology statement that implied Jackie intentionally misled them. RS received a lot of criticism for this and a few days later, they removed that part of their apology without comment (see above for more explanation). Your source is dated the same day as RS's initial apology before they updated their statement. There are plenty of very reliable sources that talk about why it's inappropriate to imply that Jackie lied since that is deliberately not what the police department said. WP:BLP says:

When writing about a person noteworthy only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems - even when the material is well sourced. When in doubt, biographies should be pared back...Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization.

BLP applies to this article because Jackie's full name and other personal information were posted online without her permission at some point during all of this. It's not in good faith with WP:BLP to continue using terms like "hoax," "debunked" and "fabricated" since they're either based on a criticized and retracted statement by the Rolling Stone and/or a journalist's controversial opinion that has been refuted by other reliable sources. As far as the personal information of a living person in this article, journalists are only reliable sources as far as reporting what the police chief said. The police chief did not ever say Jackie lied and he specifically said he's open to the possibility of discovering evidence with new information. Beyond reporting what he said, the opinions of individual journalist's or their decision to use loaded words are controversial and violate WP:BLP. Permstrump (talk) 22:18, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

• The current wording in the infobox is fine though. That's what I was about to suggest. Permstrump (talk) 22:22, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Latest explanation for false story

Here's the latest story by T. Rees Shapiro, based on court testimony in the libel suit, which offers a plausible explanation of why Jackie made up the rape story. In some accounts, there was a point at which Jackie wanted to back out of the story, but Erdly insisted on going forward with it. However, other accounts differed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/01/08/catfishing-over-love-interest-might-have-spurred-u-va-gang-rape-debacle/
‘Catfishing’ over love interest might have spurred U-Va. gang-rape debacle
By T. Rees Shapiro

January 8, 2016

Ryan Duffin was a freshman at the University of Virginia when he met a student named Jackie. Duffin sensed that Jackie was interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with him. Duffin valued her friendship but politely rebuffed Jackie’s advances for more.
Duffin said, he was goaded into a text message conversation with a U-Va. junior named “Haven Monahan,” whom Jackie said she knew from a chemistry class. (Jackie later told Duffin that Monahan raped her, but Monahan was a fabrication.)
“All available evidence demonstrates that ‘Haven Monahan’ was a fake suitor created by Jackie in a strange bid to earn the affections of a student named Ryan Duffin that Jackie was romantically interested in,” Eramo’s lawyers wrote in court papers filed this week.
(Duffin interviewed by Washington Post.) --Nbauman (talk) 01:58, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Please feel free to add the information to the article. By the way, in a later article the Washington Post explained why they haven't published Jackie's full name, it's because when they first contacted her for an interview they promised her they wouldn't use her full name, a decision I suspect they now regret. 98.169.136.119 (talk) 01:31, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@Permstrump: I guess we are now "outing" potential rape victims. Congratulations - you all should be very proud of yourselves for identifying a rape survivor with her first AND last name on a wikipedia page. I guess this is new policy??? 2605:E000:2150:7400:C85C:B76A:517E:EE9E (talk) 20:53, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

It's not there anymore (for now). Rhododendrites reverted the changes a little bit ago because it was unsourced. I can't find a single reliable source reporting her name. This WaPo article from 1/16/16 about the defamation lawsuit says, "Jackie is not a party to the lawsuit, and the court has redacted her last name from documents," so the website claiming they got the information from court documents are clearly lying. Permstrump (talk) 01:17, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Who's outing a "potential rape victim"? The police have officially announced that they found no evidence that a rape was committed. The reason we're not putting her name in the article is because no reliable sources have published it. Cla68 (talk) 15:26, 19 February 2016 (UTC)