Talk:Siniša Mali

Referencing

@DraganaSim:, you're kindly asked to exercise more diligence in your editing. This is a biography of a living persion, and every major statement should be referenced to reliable sources. With this version of yours [1]:

• The whole "Business career" section was left without a single reference. Same with the Ph.D statement, which was backed up with a link to his thesis before
• Being a Major of Belgrade is certainly not part of "Business career"
• His being board member of FAS, Air Serbia and Clinical Center is not mentioned in the Tanjug reference or any reference that I see
• I don't think that his being member of Serbian Business Angels Network, Fulbright Alumni Association of Serbia and British-Serbian Business Club and a licensed portfolio manager is particularly relevant (WP:UNDUE) at this level of coverage, but that's a smaller issue.
• St. Louis is in USA for English speakers, not in SAD
• Had you read the Novosti reference, you would have seen that he intends to run the half-marathon in 2015. 2014 Marathon has passed, and he took the "Pleasure run" there.

Finally, there's a danger of too WP:Close paraphrasing of the Tanjug reference, which should be avoided, but it's probably not too critical now. No such user (talk) 09:20, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Edit war - Eliminmaxi & Valikabg v PajaBG, ClueBot NG, Oshwah, 23 Editor, AntiVan

Eliminimaxi, can you please explain your specific problems with the content you have been blanking? To other users, it appears you are deleting content that is supported by references. This is complicated by the references being in Serbian so I have no idea it they support the parts of the article they are attached to.

Any other users with points of view on this are very welcome to shed some light on the perceived issue!

Thanks AntiVan (talk) 14:35, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Removal of the content

Some thoughts on the reasons for the recent content removal by Primefac:

“Not about mayor” - It is all about mayor. Those are decisions brought, explained, announced or defended by him. He is signing all the papers and why is the explanation how those ventures developed and ended a problem? Everything that happens during someone’s tenure is about his governance. He doesn’t have to be mentioned in every single sentence.

“By default doesn’t mean it is relevant” - But it can also mean that it is relevant. I do believe this is relevant as it tackles the possible wide corruption which is constantly being rubbed on our noses by the European Union.

“Unrelated to Mali”, not prominent - Mali is the main operative in Air Serbia so it is totally related to him. And it is prominent since it is not some small privately owned company, it is the state’s flag carrier.

“Not entirely his decision (he is not operating in a vacuum)” - This is barely an argument at all. Except for Kim Jong Un, hardly anyone is operating in a vacuum. Everything Mali announced was adopted by the City Hall exactly as he said and nothing opposing anything Mali said was ever adopted in the City Hall. Reasons for why this is not an argument overlap with those from the “not about mayor” section. Otherwise, all texts on politicians would be a Dear Diary type – what color of underwear they wear or how much coffee they drink daily. And even the underwear doesn’t have to be entirely their decision.

“Definitely attack before” - Dušan Teodorović is member of the Serbian Academy or Sciences and Arts, the highest cultural and scientific institution in the state, president of the Academy’s Board for higher education and one of Belgrade University professors with the highest citation index. He is openly and constantly accusing Mali of plagiarism. And he is not the only professor, from Belgrade University or other institutions, is doing so. Mali’s reaction wasn’t something like: it is not plagiarized, I worked hard for it, I studied hard for it, it is the pinnacle of my career, I will sue him for defamation… he said: that is his opinion. So, if you think that some members from the Serbian academia are “attacking” Mali because of plagiarism, then they are attacking him.

“Basically attack” – Why is a problem pointing out to the interpersonal praises between the politicians and comparing them to the other opinions? If Bill de Blasio would say that he loves Donald Trump very much to the point of impartiality, or if Trump would say that de Blasio is the best NYC mayor ever, would it be an attack to write that in the articles on Wikipedia? As for the Istinomer site, they measure, among other things, the truthfulness of politicians’ statements. They are rated in several levels and the lowest - a proven, blatant lie - is called “short legs”, Serbian idiom for lying (“being caught in short legs”). Mali is the champion of “short legs” on the site.

“More well-sourced attacks” - Main source for this section, and some others, is the KRIK. They have been awarded a series of international journalism awards, especially for the investigative journalism, more specifically for discovering the hidden properties and assets of the politicians, their attempts to diminish the value of their wealth and for creating the detailed and comprehensive database of the properties, assets, money, etc. of the Serbian politicians.

As for the general remarks, which apparently translates that basically everything is “negative” or “attack”: he is doing what he is doing and saying what he is saying. It is not my fault that in our time everything you say or do stays recorded so there is a problem when you say today that you didn’t say yesterday that what you did said yesterday in front of the cameras. Just as it is not my job to whitewash it. PajaBG (talk) 21:02, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

It took me less than five minutes to find multiple references that didn't even mention Mali. See WP:SYN: It's inappropriate to draw our own conclusions and to synthesize arguments that the sources don't make. To pick a random example: It doesn't matter who Dušan Teodorović is; he doesn't discuss Mali and the source does not connect his comments to Mali. His remarks might be relevant if we had an article on the urban development of Belgrade; they're irrelevant here. Beyond the obvious problems of off-topic content and synthesis, I have serious doubts about the reliability of sources that do mention Mali. For example, Opozicionar calls itself a "blog"; their editorial standards seem low, if any. Using such sources in the biography of a living person is inappropriate. Huon (talk) 21:24, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, these were my main concerns. Just because Mali is running things doesn't mean everything his company/government/etc touches is "his". There were simply too many sources that didn't actually mention Mali, or give anything more than a trivial mention, and the overall tone was "this guy is a sleazeball." I have no issue with having negative content on a BLP, but when the page is almost entirely negative content (with an impressively detailed amount of negative information), there are issues. Primefac (talk) 21:40, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

I concur with both Huon and Primefac here: simply because he is connected to something doesn't mean the negative coverage is about Mali. Doing so is a coatrack and synthesis. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:18, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I tried to explain why I don’t think that absolutely everything has to reference solely to the subject of an article as sometimes you have to explain something (introduction, wider context; this goes for any article). We disagree on that. But how can you say that Teodorović doesn't discuss Mali? Dušan Teodorović stated that he had an access (insight) into the PhD of the Belgrade mayor Siniša Mali and that it is the "horrible plagiarism": Based on the inspected documents I can say - yes, this is "horrible plagiarism." Full article is here.[2] But Teodorović example is flawed anyway. First, it does matter who is a person who states something. If I’d have a Twitter account, no one would pay attention to my tweets. Trump’s tweets are broadcast all over the world. Second, Teodorović’s remarks are about Mali’s PhD thesis, they are in the section on PhD thesis, so they are relevant as this is article on Mali, not on urban development of Belgrade. I placed sub-section on PhD under the mayoral section because of the chronology, but it could have been moved, as Primefac did, albeit, removing majority of the content in the process. As for the Opozicionar, I agree with you, but the same information can be found at the news agencies Tanjug [3] and Beta [4], at Transparency Serbia [5] and at the site of the Commissioner himself, in English.[6] Though it is obviously pointless now. PajaBG (talk) 23:10, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I don't have any issue with some of the information being added back in, but the page was ridiculously long with way too much detail that wasn't really "about Mali". If it were encyclopedic I probably could have forked off almost every "year" of his mayorship into separate full articles! Primefac (talk) 14:24, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Sinisa Mali-7384.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:21, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Ana PPP

This userid was created to just enter incomplete and one sided information about the commission validating the PhD thesis plagiarism. The commission "findings" are not final. Here is a comment shedding more light to the commission and its work. One of the commission members was forced to leave his Belgrade University professor position for being accused for corruption - taking bribery from students. The second one does not read English, therefore not capable to judge the plagiarism found in the PhD thesis. The commission overlooked a large number of pages containing blatant plagiarism or even lack of good knowledge of English while translating the plagiarized work.--178.223.86.173 (talk) 09:05, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

You're more than free to add information to the article so it's not as "one-sided" as you claim it is. It's also interesting how you're taking issue with this user having just created a new account to make edits on Siniša Mali's Wikipedia page given how you're hiding behind an IP address. How are you any better? Luka0188 (talk) 05:51, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Please remember to remain civil; IP editors have just as much right as registered users to edit pages and have discussions. Primefac (talk) 12:18, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

@Luka0188. First, I'm hiding behind the IP address as much as you're hiding behind your userid. I'm much better than Ana PPP for exposing their blatant POV. Removed the blatant POV.--178.223.86.173 (talk) 05:37, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

The information about a new PhD thesis review and reactions on the same review is added to to the Doctorate section.--Богаљ Рајовић (talk) 11:28, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Siniša Mali has the most beautiful eyes

“Editors” with the task to whitewash this fairytale life of Mali have been progressing. From the time when they were just deleting everything and being blocked, they began to add one the same “content” with references, praising the, apparently, best man in the known universe. Now we have “editor” who expands the “content” with the fake pamphlet-like propaganda, again copy-pasting the same things. This “editor" also embellished the article on Nebojša Stefanović, another government official with fake PhD…interesting. In the end, this article will end up with stuff like “when he was 8, in elementary school, girls voted Mali as the guy with the most beautiful eyes”.

I believe there is a reason for this growing “fairytalizing“ of the article: Mali is preparing to flee Serbia and take some office abroad so the article must look like an advertisement. If I’d have money, I would even bet on it. While ago, this article was completely sanitized from all the true stuff, except partially for the PhD section. So, are we going to have: a) true article b) fake article c) article where each fake claim is disputed with the true one d) administratively imposed, existing sanitized version? PajaBG (talk) 10:12, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

If you have a proposed change, make it. Otherwise, leave the florid prose to tumblr. Primefac (talk) 11:27, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello, I assume that by "editor" you were addressing me. Indeed, I made the complete overhaul of the article, reorganised information better and updating the most recent information in the case of PhD thesis plagiarism case. However, I was quite surprised that experienced editor like you just undo my version without any explanation. All references and statements in my version had a valid source, and the biggest part of the article was dedicated to the allegations and controversy. This gives everyone freedom to add counter-arguments and to question every claim that was presented in the article. Finally, my version is not intending to idealise anyone. In the end, I must notice that the editor is significantly biased in order to suppress any opinion that is against his political views.Runner369 (talk) 01:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Adding additional information about PHD review

I am adding information that PhD is reviewed by Turnitin software that is one of the most known plagiarism detection solution. BoydCrowder737 (talk) 17:14, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Early life and education

I am renaming "Education" to "Early life and education", updating info in early life and education, schools awards etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BoydCrowder737 (talk • contribs) 18:48, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Political career

The political career field was updated with the Mali's endeavors during his tenure as a Mayor of Belgrade and Minister of Finance. Please feel free to add more information if you like. Duka Mostrokol (talk) 12:57, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Personal life

I have made minor changes about to his personal life. Also, I put in some of his sports achievements and about some awards that he gets as a mayor.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Сантијаго23 (talk • contribs) 08:52, 22 July 2019 (UTC) 

Doctorate

You are just cherry picking what you like and add pointless descriptions which you think will hold water: personal oppinions, not done by Mali, not connected with this or that...Everything is connected to Mali. University life haven’t been disrupted like this since the 1990s demonstrations against Milošević. But it is disrupted now because of him. All those people are attacked just because of him. The entire state apparatus is engaged in the smear campaing just because of him. The society is divided because of him, people argue because of his doctorate everyday. A letter to Germany to fire a professor is not personal oppinion. A fact that the faculty actually didn’t vote on plagirism is not personal point of view, etc. I didn’t include all the shenanigans of the dean who tried in every possible way not to make the decision and transfer the burden to the university. Which he ultimately did – by not voting it is a plagirasm. And if you continue to do yout botting for Mali (cause you are not a proper editor, you apparently just clean this one single article under several accounts), don’t delete chunks of text, and label it as the minor edit.

What maybe should be done is to move this entire subject into the seprate article. PajaBG (talk) 13:30, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

I suggest creating a separate article similar to the Guttenberg plagiarism scandal. Still, this is too long for one person's biography. A separate article can describe the background, reactions, protests, consequences, media reporting etc. There are already plenty of sources even in the international media. --WEBDuB (talk) 22:49, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring

@Destrothemachine and Hiruzen12345: Please discuss the addition of his comment here and stop edit warring. Vacant0 (talk) 11:53, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

I inserted the minister's statement regarding what was written about the alleged affair so that someone would say that it is irrelevant what he has to say about it. Also, the source of information is credible. Hiruzen12345 (talk) 06:33, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

The whole sentence isn't relevant. He claimed that it was a lie, anything beyond that is not needed. Vacant0 (talk) 13:40, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I'd also add that it the complete sentence is badly translated. Vacant0 (talk) 13:41, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Misuse of minor edits and unreliable sources

User @Hiruzen12345 was previously engaged in an edit war and has misused the "minor edit" functionality in a recent edit, possibly to avoid extensive watcher scrutiny. They're editing exclusively this page and its counterpart on sr.wiki, which at least brings into question their motivation.

In the "minor" edit, it relies on questionable sources (b92.net, Novosti) for material content. I've added the unreliable source template after the inline citations, but considering I'm not active on en.wiki, I didn't want to engage in more substantial edits. @Vacant0, considering you're more experienced and are familiar with the article, could you provide some guidance, and possibly revert or adjust either his or my edit? Luka-jov (talk) 23:29, 26 July 2022 (UTC)