Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Cirt: Difference between revisions

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Alleged cavassing

I do not consider this to be canvassing, and in any case, it's had no immediate effect, as I responded to put off the work. Bearian (talk) 17:29, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Outside view by Gamaliel

I agree that it looks like some of the charges are just throwing everything at him to see if something sticks. But there are also some legitimate charges in there as well. This RFC seems to be treating Cirt like OJ Simpson--like the police then, we're trying to frame someone who's guilty anyway. It's bad for the police to use bogus evidence, but ultimately, OJ did do the deed he was accused of. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:36, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gamaliel's comment seems to ridicule Jayen's evidence without any substantive analysis (which is rather ironic). I'd also like to add that Prioryman's claim about wikihounding is an exaggeration. I commented at the linked to discussion and Jayen was not "heavily criticized." Indeed the thread went nowhere and people suggested RFC/U as the appropriate courses of action if either editor had complaints about the other. On that point, the arbs also suggested RFC/U when they declined the RFAr that Coren started about Cirt and the Santorum issue. I don't see how posting notice to each arbitrator about the RFC/U individually (as opposed to on a much more public noticeboard) amounts to "canvassing." People should look at all the evidence and decide for themselves what may or may not have merit. Many will undoubtedly find, as Ken has, that even if some of it seems overly ambitious there are very clearly troubling bits in there as well. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 20:09, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If there's a legitimate charge in there I'd like to know what it is. It would save us all so much time. Wnt (talk) 20:38, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For example, (1) biasing Wikimedia pre-election content relating to two US elections in favour of the candidates preferred by Anonymous, involving both the Wikipedia and Wikiquote main pages. (2) Multiple violations of WP:BLPSPS. --JN466 21:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because you're planning to take my word for it? Cirt's involvement with political articles during elections is very troubling. I think his other promotional writing, like the Daryl Wine Bar article is also troubling, but less so because BLP issues are invovled with the political stuff not to mention gaming the encyclopedia to advance real life political interests. Those who have commented that Cirt has puffed up articles for both Democrats and Republicans fail to acknowledge that his interests in these matters clearly don't fall in line with party politics. The pattern her is clear by the way. Cirt has not only puffed these articles up when it mattered (ongoing elections or recent announcements of running for office), but he's worked as hard as he could to get maximum exposure through things like DYK. When someone engages in this kind of puffery they edit against WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. One of the additional aspects of all this that Jayen has not even mentioned is that Cirt's puffery has caused a serious amount of disruption in multiple venues related to the good faith efforts of others to curtail his politicking. It took 2 AfDs to delete both the Dickson and Daryl Wine Bar articles (articles that very clearly never belonged in the encyclopedia). During the process Cirt dragged editors to AN/I and otherwise contributed to a very unproductive atmosphere in order to defend his work. That was what bothered me most. That people who are just trying to do their job and keep the encyclopedia filled with good quality encyclopedic content all of a sudden had to suffer harassment at AN/I and all kinds of accusations of incivility, hounding, etc. because they didn't have the social capital he had. Yet they were right all along. That's not something we need around here. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 21:33, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if that is your view, why don't you draw up an Outside view? I'll sign up to that. :) The RfC/U is already a lot to read; there are lots of other issues in a similar vein that could have been added. Some of the ones you mention are touched upon in the AN/I threads linked towards the bottom, in the Canvassing section, i.e.

While I personally have the opinion that OJ did it, if I were on that jury I could not have convicted him... because the police were so busy trying to frame him, badly, that they introduced far too much reasonable doubt. It's deeply troubling to hear someone say "we're trying to frame someone who's guilty anyway". Look closely at that statement: It admits that one is providing false evidence or false testimony in order to falsely prove someone guilty of a crime, but justifies it by assuming the role of judge and jury, declaring guilt without evidence or due process. The statement is, in short, vigilantism, and I don't see how such is compatible with Wikipedia's Pillars. It sure isn't WP:PROVEIT. Besides, comparing Cirt's editing with the brutal stabbing death of two people...? // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:14, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Timing of santorum edits

On May 9, Cirt made five edits to Santorum (neologism), primarily adding a response by Santorum that in my view substantially improved the article's NPOV. [1] Prior to this, he had not been a substantial contributor to the page for at least a year. [2]
On May 9, at 11 p.m. EDT, Jon Stewart suggested that users search Google for the term "santorum", leading the term to become one of Google's top hits. [3][4]
On the afternoon of May 10, Cirt began seriously editing the article. In the course of 14 hours, he made the majority of 100 edits by six users. [5] This all occurred after the term became newly newsworthy and notable thanks to Jon Stewart.

So, based on the timeline, there is a perfectly credible alternative to the "pure political motivation" theory for Cirt's edits. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 20:55, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Page view stats bear out the link to Jon Stewart's show. On 10 May, the day after it was broadcast, views of the article went up from 1,900 on 9 May to over 149,000 on 10 May. [6] Note that Santorum didn't announce his campaign formally until 6 June. [7] Stewart's show is the only conceivable factor that could have produced that usage spike. Prioryman (talk) 21:03, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Yeah, I'm having real trouble understanding the complaint... if something happens to make a topic suddenly far richer in reliable sources overnight, apparently what you should not do is make use of them and go digging for others that might have been missed? I guess I've been doing this Wikipedia editing thing all wrong... // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 21:14, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't aware of the Jon Stewart show. The article Macwhiz posted, published on the day after the show, described Santorum as a "presidential hopeful". Apparently, "On Monday night's Daily Show, Stewart ran down the list of lesser-known presidential [hopefuls] and encouraged viewers to Google them." --JN466 21:11, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's surprising that you weren't aware of it, considering that information about it was added (not by Cirt) to the article only a few hours after it was broadcast. [8] It's still there now in an amended form under "Reception and political impact", which says: "[Stewart's] reference to it in May 2011 caused the word to be one of the most queried search terms on Google the following day". Surely you must have read the article you've been campaigning against? Prioryman (talk) 21:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Jayen, I think that's where a lot of the consternation from "the other side" at santorum came from: that Daily Show clip generated tons of press in RSes, and fed interest in the term... leading to the reinforcement of the PageRank for Savage's page (and likely ours). If Cirt hadn't done it, someone else would have: bet you'd find a history of page expansions following notable usages on Stewart or Colbert's shows. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 21:17, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the timing is certainly close. Cirt started editing the article on 9 May, 22:21 UTC. That's 17:21 Eastern time, and probably a few hours before Stewart's late-night show. But I agree Stewart's show covering the presidential hopefuls, and subsequent press coverage, cast a spotlight on the issue. --JN466 21:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is neither horseshoes nor hand grenades, though. As for the five edits Cirt made on the 9th, adding Santorum's POV to the article, I note that one of them was an article published on April 28—just 11 days earlier. This implies to me that Cirt was not exactly tending the article at the time. It is, however, consistent with an editor finding a recent source that has not yet been assimilated, and then finding other material in the process of balancing out the article. That's normal editing. Frankly, unless someone wants to present unequivocal evidence that Cirt was somehow collaborating with Dan Savage and Jon Stewart to hype the article before it made the news thanks to Stewart—which would be an absurd allegation—I think this has to be chalked up to coincidence. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quotation of Anonymous forum postings

The link given as evidence for the Anonymous forum: [9]

The message Jayen selectively quoted as evidence is numbered #18.
The message I quoted as saying Cirt is ethical is numbered #13.
Cirt's name entered the thread in message #6, apparently from someone looking to see which editor performed a "cleanup" of David Miscavige. Interestingly, while the RfC/U seems to be trying to paint Cirt as a rabid anti-Scientologist, the folks on this anti-Scientology forum were concerned that he was making pro-Scientology edits—and perhaps even a Scientologist plant himself. The later comments #13 and #18 were by way of refuting those concerns.

Personally, I think that it speaks well of Cirt's contributions to that area if both the pro- and anti- forces are concerned that he's pushing the other side's POV. If you're pissing off both sides, you must be doing something right. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 21:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The David Miscavige edits discussed at that board, by the way, were in response to a BLPN thread: Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive96#David_Miscavige. I don't think Cirt would deny that he has links with Anonymous. He has stated that he knows Xenubarb, and contacted her for assistance on the campaign articles. Gregg Housh follows Cirt on scribd (as do Jason Beghe, and Mike Godwin, for that matter :) ). Cirt has uploaded tons of Anonymous videos to Commons, and has freely admitted joining Wikinews originally with a focus of reporting on that one issue. [10] Project Chanology is his most-edited article in Wikipedia. That's all fine; but I don't think it should induce an admin to actually set out to bias Wikimedia content pre-election in such a pronounced manner, using two projects' main pages. It's not good for this project to be used as an electioneering aid. --JN466 21:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't play "guilt by association". Knowing someone, even to the extent that you could ask their assistance in obtaining a copyright signoff from someone they know, isn't the same thing as being an associate of someone. I know someone who works on the crew of CSI, but that doesn't mean I'm associated with their chronic use of invalid IP addresses. We all know someone who has done something that other people don't like, without being in any way associated with their actions. (Or worse, not even knowing someone, but being observed by someone is not proof of taint!) Scientology is a hot topic on Wikipedia, and I fear that "He's (pro-|anti-)Scientology!" is the Wikipedia equivalent of "He supports terrorism!" at this point.

Reading the BLPN thread you linked and the associated talk-page discussion, I see what looks like WP:BRD, with Cirt making a number of deletions to make Jayen and Resident Anthropolgist happy. It looks like good collegial editing to me.

Per your link, I see Cirt saying "I know I focused on a particular topic when I started out here and was learning the ropes, but I have since attempted to diversify the type of articles I write, contributing to 10 articles on other unrelated topics." I don't think this is an uncommon thing. If I look at your edit history, Jayen, I see you concentrating on a small number of articles in a narrow range of topics in your early days, too—but I would not now try to paint you as unhealthily obsessed with cars and Indian mysticism.

I am still nowhere near convinced that you have made the case that Cirt is using Wikipedia as "an electioneering aid", and by the arguments in this RfC/U, I'm left to wonder if any editing of political articles would be acceptable during political silly season under this line of argument. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:33, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 Personally, I think that it speaks well of Cirt's contributions to that area if both the pro- and anti- forces are concerned that he's pushing the other side's POV.  If you're pissing off ''both'' sides, you must be doing ''something'' right. // [[User:Macwhiz|⌘macwhiz]] ([[User talk:Macwhiz|talk]]) 21:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 :The David Miscavige edits discussed at that board, by the way, were in response to a BLPN thread: [[Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive96#David_Miscavige]]. I don't think Cirt would deny that he has links with Anonymous. He has stated that he knows Xenubarb, and contacted her for assistance on the campaign articles. [http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/69998-battling-scientology/ Gregg Housh] [http://www.scribd.com/ctric/subscribers follows] Cirt on scribd (as do [[Jason Beghe]], and [[Mike Godwin]], for that matter :) ). Cirt has uploaded tons of Anonymous videos to Commons, and has freely admitted joining Wikinews originally with a focus of reporting on that one issue. [http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Requests_for_permissions/Administrator/Cirt] [[Project Chanology]] is his most-edited article in Wikipedia. That's all fine; but I don't think it should induce an admin to actually set out to bias Wikimedia content pre-election in such a pronounced manner, using two projects' main pages. It's not good for this project to be used as an electioneering aid. --'''<font color="#0000FF">[[User:Jayen466|J]]</font><font color=" #FFBF00">[[User_Talk:Jayen466|N]]</font><font color="#0000FF">[[Special:Contributions/Jayen466|466]]</font>''' 21:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
+:: Please don't play "guilt by association".  ''Knowing'' someone, even to the extent that you could ask their assistance in obtaining a copyright signoff from someone ''they'' know, isn't the same thing as ''being an associate of'' someone.  I ''know'' someone who works on the crew of ''CSI'', but that doesn't mean I'm ''associated with'' their chronic use of invalid IP addresses.  We all ''know'' someone who has done something that other people don't like, without being in any way associated with their actions.  (Or worse, not even knowing someone, but ''being observed by someone'' is not proof of taint!) Scientology is a hot topic on Wikipedia, and I fear that "He's (pro-|anti-)Scientology!" is the Wikipedia equivalent of "He supports terrorism!" at this point.
+:: Reading the BLPN thread you linked and the associated talk-page discussion, I see what looks like [[WP:BRD]], with Cirt making a number of deletions to make Jayen and Resident Anthropolgist happy.  It looks like good collegial editing to me.
+:: Per your link, I see Cirt saying "I know I focused on a particular topic when I started out here and was learning the ropes, but I have since attempted to diversify the type of articles I write, contributing to 10 articles on other unrelated topics."  I don't think this is an uncommon thing. If I look at ''your'' edit history, Jayen, I see you concentrating on a small number of articles in a narrow range of topics in ''your'' early days, too—but I would not now try to paint you as unhealthily obsessed with cars and Indian mysticism.
+:: I am still nowhere near convinced that you have made the case that Cirt is using Wikipedia as "an electioneering aid", and by the arguments in this RfC/U, I'm left to wonder if ''any'' editing of political articles would be acceptable during political silly season under this line of argument. // [[User:Macwhiz|⌘macwhiz]] ([[User talk:Macwhiz|talk]]) 22:33, 27 June 2011 (UTC)