Talk:Yousef Al Otaiba

Charismatic

I don't think this person should be described as "a charismatic advisor". It does not show a neutral point of view. The better phrase is "a senior advisor". --Alchemist Jack (talk) 10:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Hacked via UAE during Trump administration

Need to incorporate into article;

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/uae-hacked-qatari-government-sites-sparking-regional-upheaval-according-to-us-intelligence-officials/2017/07/16/00c46e54-698f-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_usqatar-640pm-winner%3Ahomepage%2Fstory#

"The hacks and posting took place on May 24, shortly after President Trump completed a lengthy counterterrorism meeting with Persian Gulf leaders in neighboring Saudi Arabia and declared them unified."

further more , the article states;

In a statement released in Washington by its ambassador, Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE said the Post article was “false.”

“The UAE had no role whatsoever in the alleged hacking described in the article,” the statement said. “What is true is Qatar’s behavior. Funding, supporting, and enabling extremists from the Taliban to Hamas and Qadafi. Inciting violence, encouraging radicalization, and undermining the stability of its neighbors.” --Wikipietime (talk) 17:40, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

In my opinion, it would be better to wait a couple days to see if there's any verification or rebuttals to this from US intelligence officials in case this turns out to be fake news. This is still a fast-developing story. Elspamo4 (talk) 18:41, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Page Issues

Hey Huldra, I noticed that you reverted my recent edits on this page, the page currently contains unsourced claims, has issues with NPOV and promo (positive and negative) and the article does not stick to subject per WP:BLP. Could you further explain your reasoning? Quorum816 (talk) 21:02, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi User:Quorum816; firstly: you will not "ping" me with Huldra, you need to use User:Huldra.

Secondly: could you please list here what you consider NPOV and promo, or unsourced claims? Huldra (talk) 21:28, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi User:Huldra Sorry about mis-tagging you.

A few sources on the page are biographies, so I replaced them with third party sources. Some of the sources don’t even mention him. There are also phrases like “abruptly” and “first rate” which are editorial and don’t really belong. I restructured the article for clarity and removed content about other people that shouldn’t be on this page per WP:BLPBALANCE. Could you please explain your reasoning for reverting? Quorum816 (talk) 21:52, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

You shortened the article by 3,254...to shorten so much should be taken in stages IMO. "Depuffery" is always welcome, and if I re-introduced that; I'm sorry. Alas, it was the "Hacked emails: removed excessive detail" which I noticed: I have seen similar edit lines too many times when people want to "get rid of" embarrassing info on wp.

Why don't you take one and one paragraph; and lets discuss the changes? Huldra (talk) 22:04, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

I understand your concern completely and my goal isn’t to get rid of anything, rather to make the page more clear and readable and ensure that it isn’t violating any WP:BLP policies. We can start with the first paragraph:

In early June 2017, a hacker group calling itself “GlobalLeaks” began distributing hacked emails stolen from the inbox of Al Otaiba. According to The Intercept, the leaked emails revealed how Al Otaiba prior to being an ambassador lived a double life as a party-goer with his friends in Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, and Abu Dhabi.

Changed “double life” to just say “spent time partying with friends” as the former is inflammatory and tabloid speak. List of cities didn’t add anything to the point.

According to The Intercept, one of Al Otaibas friends, Roman Paschal, expressed that he allegedly observed the exploitation of trafficked girls in Abu Dhabi.

I removed this sentence where it discusses human trafficking because the source states that he wasn’t involved in trafficking, and this being on his page is insinuation which violates WP:BLP

According to Arab News, a direct invitation to publish the emails were turned down by major news outlets except for The Intercept, which commentators expressed was because there is no “smoking gun” in the emails and "all they reveal is an envoy who has Arab interests at heart" and criticizes countries that support extremism.

I cut the commentary and quotes because they were opinion rather than facts about the emails.

I didn’t change the last two sentences of the paragraph. Other sentences that I didn’t include in here I either didn’t change or only changed a word or two.

Let me know your thoughts. Quorum816 (talk) 14:24, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi User:Huldra, I just wanted to see if you noticed my latest comments here. Let me know your thoughts. Quorum816 (talk) 16:19, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Quorum816 my apologies; I didn't notice your December comments. As for the suggestions: I do not agree with the two first suggestions:

I would argue for keeping “double life” , and list of cities. It isn't only "partying with friends” when you are an ambassador for a Muslim country,

And from the article it is clear that trafficked girls were at the parties he attended,

However, I agree with your third suggestion (removing "According to Arab News, a direct invitation to publish the emails were turned down by major news outlets except for The Intercept, which commentators expressed was because there is no “smoking gun” in the emails and "all they reveal is an envoy who has Arab interests at heart" and criticizes countries that support extremism.): it doesn't bring any info to the article: I will remove it now, Huldra (talk) 20:41, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi User:Huldra

Regarding the "double life," the Intercept article uses this phrase in the headline and it's a contentious and sensational term, which isn't allowed per WP:LABEL or WP:WEASEL.

Regarding the trafficked girls, the article quotes Roman saying that Otaiba wasn't involved in the trafficking: "He was never present when women were sent," Paschal told me of Otaiba, whom he referred to by a nickname used among his American friends. "You can't say that Sef is a human trafficker - he's not." The way the Wikipedia article is phrased insinuates that he was involved in trafficking, which Paschal states isn't true. The insinuation that he was involved violates WP:BLP because it's untrue and is contentious. Even though he's a public figure and falls under WP:PUBLICFIGURE, WP:BLPRS requires that "contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion". Since the Intercept is the only source that claims he was at parties where trafficked women were present, this doesn't abide by the requirement that multiple, reliable, third-party sources are needed to document an allegation or incident. Quorum816 (talk) 20:41, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I've made the edits in accordance with WP:BLP and WP:BLPRS Quorum816 (talk) 21:11, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

This is being discussed at the BLP board, and the one admin who has expressed a view, does not agree with you. Reverting. Huldra (talk) 20:14, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Also, I really don't appreciate misleading edit-lines, like when you write "fixed link in citation to go to correct page"...but where you also removed "According to his official UAE embassy biography", Huldra (talk) 20:21, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

User:Huldra I removed “according to his official UAE bio” because I removed the bio as a source (it’s not legitimate) so it didn’t make sense to keep that line. It was a minor change in addition to the source correction. I wouldn’t call it intentional misleading.

I've read User:Masem's comments on the issue and it doesn't appear that they disagree with me. The information regarding Yemen in Otaiba's article is a direct quote from the Intercept article, but there is no proof that Otaiba had anything to do with the UAE's interactions in the war. The way it's currently worded makes it seem as though he was personally involved with the "death squads" and "torture warehouses" which The Intercept article does not claim and which violates WP:BLP as contentious material. As for the other mentions, the first sentence where the Intercept is a source refers to his graduation from Georgetown - I reworded this sentence because it originally contained weasel words and I replaced the Intercept with a more neutral, third party source. The second and third time it was used, I left it there.

Further, I wasn't trying to downplay the information in The Intercept. I did reword some information sourced from it to be in line with WP:NPOV, and in one place I updated it with a more NPOV source. Additionally, I don't appreciate you bringing this up on the BLP board without informing me so I could explain my edits. I waited over two weeks for you to reply, during which you completely disappeared and as far as I knew, you were fine with my previous explanations. You could have told me you were discussing this elsewhere, so that I could give my own explanation for the edits I made.

In reverting my edits, it appears that you haven't looked at the changes I made. Rather, you reverted all my edits wholesale without any considering their individual merit. My edits to the email section were intended to ensure NPOV and BLP as well as move it under the career section where it belongs, since it occurred during his time as a government official. If you read the version of the page with my edits, you would see that all the information about Otaiba is still present on the page. Quorum816 (talk) 16:33, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I’ve attempted to get feedback regarding BLP issues in this article for several months now with no response. Due to the lack of responses and being at an impasse, I'm choosing to step away from the article. Below are the issues that I feel still exist on the page:

- WP:UNDUE: The hacked email section is 6 paragraphs long filled with excessive details about one instance of hacked emails. For example, it includes all of the back-and-forth about hosting a Taliban Embassy in Abu Dhabi instead of just plainly stating the facts. It also veers far from the subject of the article in some cases, including when discussing Mohamed Fahmy.

- In some cases, the excessive details lead to guilt by association WP:BLPBALANCE: "observed the exploitation of trafficked girls in Abu Dhabi". This sentence insinuates that Otaiba was involved in human trafficking, but the source specifically states that he wasn't involved in the situation.

- Some of the extra details are sourced improperly, such as an opinion piece on the NYT and a blog/news outlet that isn’t credible/information isn’t verifiable (All Gov).

- Some of the information on the page can only be found within an Intercept article. WP:PUBLICFIGURE notes that for something to be included, it must be able to be found in several, verifiable sources. I.e: "Upon his arriving in the capital, Otaiba hired Amy Little-Thomas, a former State Department staffer in the Bush administration, who became the UAE embassy's chief of protocol and he created the nonprofit ″Oasis Foundation″, his private foundation in connection with his work as ambassador "to advance positive relations between the UAE, a significant American ally (particularly in the Middle East), and the United States.” Court documents later disclosed deposits of millions of dollars to Oasis accounts, which were by turns frozen or shut down for suspicious activity."

- Finally, the section is just confusing and includes typos and run-on sentences (contributing to the undue weight): “In other emails, he described how the Emiratis have had a more bad history with Saudi's than anyone else and has warred against them for 200 years over Wahhabism.”

If other editors want to weigh in on these issues and/or try to improve the page, I encourage them to do so. Quorum816 (talk) 13:03, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC on hacked emails section

There is information on this page, particularly in the hacked emails section, that includes inflammatory language and insinuations, which don't abide by WP:BLP. User:Huldra and I have been discussing changes to the page, however we have reached a standstill and I would appreciate others' thoughts on this page. Please refer to the above Page Issues section for further information on this. RfC extended by Quorum816 (talk) 13:58, 7 April 2020 (UTC); originally opened 13:10, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Comment This was brought to the BLP-board (see Archive298#Yousef_Al_Otaiba), where the one admin responding there did not react to "inflammatory language and insinuations", Huldra (talk) 21:39, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Also at Archive302#Yousef_Al_Otaiba, Huldra (talk) 20:31, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Paid editing?

Note that the above User:Quorum816 has been blocked as a sock of User:VentureKit. The editor who opened up the sock-investigation, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/VentureKit stated "All of these accounts are (likely expensive) undiscosed paid editors, likely working for a major PR firm".

Cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:57, 9 January 2021 (UTC)