Talk:Neri Oxman/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Jeffrey Epstein association

This should be outlined. Where should I put it? 2600:1017:B800:29A1:55BF:929C:91EB:F328 (talk) 17:27, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/2600:1017:B800:29A1:55BF:929C:91EB:F328, I'd like to first say that this seems to be a fairly dangerous conversation, in the sense that you could easily get banned for violating WP:BLP if you can not back up what you are hinting at with *facts* from *reliable sources*. That said, if you do have such facts, I suggest that you just list them here with links to the sources. I can then check them out to see if what you are implying here are actually what the sources said. In such a serious case, I'd want to see at least 2 very reliable sources (e.g. NY Times) and would (in my opinion) need to see that you are not synthesizing "facts" and not over-interpreting the sources. I'm sure you can understand why Wikipedia does not want opinions or implications of this type of thing in articles, just straight facts. Doing it this way will save yourself lots of trouble. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:54, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't have the time to edit the article appropriately myself but here are some highly reliable sources that should come in handy that corroborate the following facts:

1. Neri Oxman met with Epstein along with a few other media lab faculty at the Media Lab.

2. Neri Oxman's lab subsequently received $125,000 in funding from Jeffrey Epstein

3. According to Oxman, Ito requested that Oxman's lab produce a gift for Epstein which she agreed to do. When a grad student in her lab expressed qualms about making a gift for Jeffrey Epstein, she reassured them that she was aware and that she would discuss this in person.

The Boston Globe piece is the most thorough on the topic but as @Smallbones has emphasized the importance of multiple reliable sources, there's also the fact finding report MIT commissioned from Goodwin and Procter as well as a series of other articles which mention these events in more or less detail.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/09/13/meeting-with-epstein-led-gift-and-now-regrets/0SPYm0hSg8iNh3JdDwPICP/story.html

https://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf?200117

https://www.axios.com/2019/09/14/joi-jeffrey-epstein-ties-mit-media-lab-professor

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/neri-oxman-jeffrey-epstein-13236/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/renowned-israeli-designer-caught-in-epstein-donations-scandal/

https://www.dezeen.com/2019/09/16/neri-oxman-mit-donations-jeffrey-epstein-news/

https://www.axios.com/2019/09/12/reid-hoffman-jeffrey-epstein-mit-donations

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/jan/06/neri-oxman-bill-ackman-plagiarism-accusations 2600:4040:278C:CA00:4909:5185:BC31:7604 (talk) 06:47, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I also am pressed for time this week, but a quick view of the above looks good to me, and might justify at least a full paragraph in this article. I'll request that somebody else includes this. Late last night I saw the new article from the Guardian. That in itself would be almost enough of an RS for me. I'd also seen before the MIT 51 page official fact finding report, but didn't realize that Oxman was mentioned 10 times in it. Note that I've reported in The Signpost an Epstein story using that report as evidence. See the next to last section at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-03-29/In focus My Signpost article doesn't name Oxman, but the MIT report is definitely authoritative. The only other source I've checked from the above list is the Art News one (because I thought it might be the weakest for this Wikiarticle). It's fine by me, since they are reporting an art based story (their strength) about Oxman making a piece of art for Epstein. If nobody else wants to include it, please leave any objections below. I'll likely include a full paragraph in a day or 2. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:42, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll only be able to come back to this after a long while. I'll be writing an article about Ackman for The Signpost on a somewhat different story and I try to avoid mixing up my efforts as a Wikipedia editor with my efforts as a Signpost reporter. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:26, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

This seems undue, especially given the timing. It is already mentioned in the article. – SJ + 00:29, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Zenomonoz you changed an accurate summary to something misleading, making it seem like a personal donation rather than to the lab, and like a personal gift, rather than part of a set requested by the parent Media Lab to give to a cohort of donors. That's the sort of change you should discuss first. – SJ + 18:23, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Not true, SJ. You say I was "making it seem like a personal donation rather than to the lab". No, the first part of text was long existing content and was not written by me. It reads: an MIT report revealed that Oxman's lab had received $125,000 from Jeffrey Epstein, part of a series of donations he made to the Media Lab and its director — it doesn't say this was a personal donation, and more importantly I didn’t write it. I’m surprised by the accusation I guess.

As for "like a personal gift, rather than part of a set requested by the parent Media Lab to give to a cohort of donors". The RS states Oxman asked those in her lab to prepare and send a gift to Epstein, according to documents shared by an MIT employee – and I wrote that Oxman asked her lab to prepare the gift. The "parent Media Lab" wasn't some afar entity. It was a small lab run by Ito, Oxman's close colleague. Oxman agreed to do it (it's her sculpture, after all) while she hushed her students who raised questions. We can certainly clarify that gifting for donors was common. They still chose to make one for Jeffrey which is what the RS are discussing. Cheers. Zenomonoz (talk) 10:58, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Plagiarism controversy

Is there a reason why accusations of plagerism are included the in the education section rather than in her career or works section like was done for the allegations against Harvard president Claudine Gay?

The topic seems misplaced. Additionally the paragraph says "Oxman subsequently expressed regret and apologized for the errors in her dissertation on the social media platform X" however the prior sentence cites specific plagerism claims which Oxam has not apologized for as her apology was on January 4 2024 while the cited accusations were only published on January 5th 2024. 184.148.234.235 (talk) 04:45, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

It probably needs to be elsewhere and chronological. I also agree. She "apologised" for the first accusation, but the new report shows she plagiarised entire paragraphs from Wikipedia and other sources. Zenomonoz (talk) 05:01, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Moved to Career at appropriate year and shortened. BLPs needn't cover blow-by-blow updates. – SJ + 09:04, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Why is it in career, it is concerning her MIT dissertation, shouldnt it be moved back in education? I also included the original two sources of Business Insider. Please stop deleting them. Sashona (talk) 20:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a curious case, but we may be seeing more of them. In general I think we should be wary about including third-party allegations (A accusing B on behalf of C), and about contributing to feedback loops of allegations levied for media attentio, especially in BLPs. BI is not generally reliable, and doesn't generally cover academia or architecture. They have published 5 different articles about this in the last few days, presumably because it's popular. We don't need a subsection and four separate BI cites about it. Of those, I left the one explicitly referencing Gay, since that's their claim of notability. – SJ + 19:50, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Business insider has been quoted by news websites like the New York Times, CNN , WSJ and Fortune. If they are not reliable why quote them. Sashona (talk) 20:21, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it's obvious from the context of the sources that the ony reason BI examined her work for plagiarism and wrote about it was that she was the wife of Bill Ackman, who was using plagiarism accusations to get his adversaries such as Claudine Gay fired, and BI was looking for similar cases of plagiarism in Ackman's personal associates. If we don't include that, as most of the WP:RS do, we're leaving out an important part of the story. Many people quoted in WP:RS describe the plagiarism by Gay and Oxman as trivial violations of the rules, which I think is BI's point. This plagiarism accusation is not a significant reflection on Oxman's ethics, and only came up as a reducto ad absurdum rebuttal to Ackman's charges. Agreed? Nbauman (talk) 00:30, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it's best to wait until the incident has evolved further or even been resolved, to avoid WP:RECENTISM. The subject of this article will likely come under intense scrutiny in the coming weeks/months.

On a related note, plagiarism is plagiarism. We can mention that it got started because of Ackman's accusations against Claudine Gay (and link to that incident in the text, or even use a "See also" template at the start of the subsection), but how it got started doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. According to this source (Business Insider again), some allegations are more serious: She copied text verbatim without even mentioning the source (usually Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, but also textbooks), violating an image license agreement in the process. This goes beyond just missing quotation marks, and also beyond trivial violations of the rules. The institution at which she wrote her thesis (MIT) may start a formal investigation if these turn out to be true, since they might indicate a pattern of behavior. TucanHolmes (talk) 18:24, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Oxman's husband wrote a 5,100-word series of posts on X on January 6, one hour after BI had asked his spokesman for comment and one hour before BI published the article with the text passages and the image cribbed from WP. Quote: It does not strike me as plagiarism, nor do I think it takes anything away from her work. I added the Washington Post article to the sources but am on the fence on whether mentioning his opinion to the article; haven't found any reports of Oxman herself discussing the matter. BI quote: It's not surprising that Oxman wouldn't credit Wikipedia in her doctoral dissertation: While Wikipedia is generally accurate, anyone can edit it, so teachers regularly tell their students that they should not cite the website as an authority. (snicker, license to copy?) Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 17:24, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Using BI seems fine in this case. A recent discussion on the reliable sources noticeboard established that exposes of this sort are reliable, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_423?wprov=srpw1_0#Business_Insider_on_Lex_Fridman

Zenomonoz (talk) 03:59, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

On a general note on including this thing in the article, please consider WP:PROPORTION, WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NAVELGAZING. Just because it's in the news now (and WP is mentioned) it doesn't necessarily have to be in the article now. We can wait a week or 3. I removed the mention of it from the WP:LEAD, hopefully that is seen as reasonable. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:24, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:RECENTISM is an essay, not a WP policy or guideline. It's not a reason to exclude otherwise suitable content from WP. Oxman's plagiarism issue has received extensive coverage from many WP:RS. That meets the WP standards for inclusion. It meets those standards now. BI published the story, Ackman and Oxman gave their response, the facts are not disputed, and many people, including experts in plagiarism, gave their opinions in WP:RS. These are not rumors. There's no reason to expect them to change in 3 weeks. People want to read these facts and responses now. They affect how plagiarism is treated now and in the future. So why shouldn't it go in the entry now? --Nbauman (talk) 20:40, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:PROPORTION and WP:NOTNEWS are policies, though. Those are why this doesn't have to be quickly added to the article, no matter what people may want. Current article content on this is not glaringly awful, though, at least there's not a separate section. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:43, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Zenomonoz, hi. This article has been here since 2013. The story under discussion is a few days old. Per WP:LEAD, it is not "any prominent controversies." See also the note at the end of that sentence, which says "Do not violate WP:Neutral point of view by giving undue attention to less important controversies in the lead section." My view is that that is what you are doing here:[1]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think this is ‘unique attention’ to a “less important” controversy. That might be the case if it were trivial. If Claudine Gay’s accusations can be mentioned in the lead, it is appropriate here too. Zenomonoz (talk) 21:57, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång, hi. This story has been subject to an extreme level of censorship in the popular press. In my view, Wikipedia is not a PR service, and as @Zenomonoz specified, no such care is being taken for e.g. Claudine Gay. I have reverted your undo. Lcdrovers (talk) 00:21, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Cheers, definitely don't see why it being a few days old excludes it from the lead. That isn't a guideline at all. 'There is no rush' only concerns when there isn't yet enough reliable sourcing. There is in this case. Zenomonoz (talk) 01:14, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Extreme censorship? Really? Oh well, consensus will be what it will be. My view remains that this thing fails the lead per WP:LEAD, WP:PROPORTION and WP:NOTNEWS. Possibly there is also some WP-hype because WP is mentioned, and a potential Gaza-war-ish connection, but that's speculation on my part. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:25, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Please note, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, that the first words of WP:NOTNEWS are Editors are encouraged to include current and up-to-date information within its coverage. What NOTNEWS excludes is dramatically different than this content. It excludes original reporting, routine news, who's who, and celebrity gossip. Nothing else. Cullen328 (talk) 09:35, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

And it goes on to say "Also, while including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information." So, is putting this thing in the WP:LEAD of this WP:GA WP:BLP "emphasized" or not in your opinion? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Gråbergs Gråa Sång, I do not think this controversy should go into the lead at this time, but that could change depending on the impact it has on her career. I am just opposed to the use of NOTNEWS to try to exclude content that the policy does not require be excluded. I happen to consider NOTNEWS to be high on our list of misused policy acronyms. Cullen328 (talk) 10:11, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree that that could change, and I think I referred to NOTNEWS (and other acronyms) in a relevant manner. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:15, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

In context, Gråbergs I think you have it right. – SJ + 00:29, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm content to see newsworthy plagiarism featured in our articles especially for eacademics (even former ones). But this is not lead-worthy material -- certainly not yet (WP:RECENTISM). Nomoskedasticity (talk) 09:17, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, Ackman is certainly working on making it become more notable day by day. The more this explodes because the accusations against his wife are now a catalyst for his plagiarism crusade (don't know if I can find another word for it), the more her notability as a subject of plagiarism accusations will eclipse her notability as a designer and academic; see also Streisand effect. TucanHolmes (talk) 17:03, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

One could argue that this thing is more about him [2] than her, she is more like collateral damage in the whatever-crusade. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:12, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Coverage here should be limited to events specifically about the topic. Details about Ackman's campaigns may be more suited for the article about him. I condensed mentions of his efforts a to those directly related to these allegations, and reduced duplicated claims in the section. – SJ + 07:40, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Doesn't matter whether it's more about him or her; this still influences what she is notable for, even if she is notable as "just" collateral damage in Ackman's campaign, as you've put it. TucanHolmes (talk) 11:34, 12 January 2024 (UTC)