User talk:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/review/Yvonne Bradley

to do

Usually individuals are refered to by their titles, ranks or honorifics just once in articles. So I think the extra "lt col" should be trimmed here. Geo Swan (talk) 04:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Trimming done. Added some Yvonnes.---PJHaseldine (talk) 13:04, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Did you see my comments on the admin's talk page, where I talked about Bradley's concerns over being disbarred, and her fifth amendment plea -- both back in 2006.

I won't have time to work the article for a few days.

Did you look at the additional references I found and put in User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/rescue/Yvonne Bradley? Very similar name, but that file just lists a dozen or so additional references.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 02:52, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty well convinced that Bradley should have an independent article; there is reliably sourced detail on her that does not belong in the article on her client. The argument that her notability is dependent is actually a misleading one. We have reliable source on facts, many sources. Those facts are notable; the publications are evidence of that. With true dependent reliability, all the facts in the reliable sources can fit in the article on the notable topic, so a reliably sourced article in the dependent topic is redundant. "Reliable source" in this case is probably not primary source, for sure, because primary sources often don't show notability. It's secondary sources, where a publisher spends money to fill space with facts because the publisher thinks the facts are ... of interest! I.e., notable. Nice page, George.

My concern about the article now is mostly tone. User:Geo_Swan/Guantanamo/review/Yvonne_Bradley#Bradley.27s_promise

That reads like a gushy piece in a fanzine.

Other topic heads are sensationalized, not very informative, and are not NPOV. As an example, User:Geo_Swan/Guantanamo/review/Yvonne_Bradley#MI5_.27collusion.27. Section headings should rigorously avoid implications of a conclusion on what may be a disputed fact. What the section actually shows are claims of collusion, reference to asserted evidence and opinion, and it isn't necessarily balanced.

The article needs to get much tighter and stick with very clear facts, reliably sourced. Whether there is one participating here or not, imagine an editor who believes that everything the U.S. was doing at Guantanamo was justified, but who also is dedicated to honesty. Yes, hard, I know, but do it. Try to satisfy this editor, because if the editor isn't participating now, he or she will at an AfD if it comes to that. Make the article AfD-bulletproof. You've got the sources, I think. Use them, and be very very careful about implying some conclusion or POV that is not clearly attributed and, as well, balanced, if there is RS on the balance. How does MI5 respond to the allegations?

You know, Yvonne Bradley is a U.S. citizen, dealing with U.S. military matters under U.S. jurisdiction. The sources are all British, except Amnesty International. Advocacy organizations aren't necessarily reliable source. The Guardian is. The New Statesman is, according to our article, a left-wing political magazine. Such publications may be usable, but should be attributed in the text, with author, if possible, and possibly with other qualifications.

Where are the U.S. sources? There are plenty listed in George's page above, and I suspect there are more. They are mainstream newspapers. Here is what I suspect at this point: PJH, are you interested in this article because of an agenda around British politics? Is that why the article emphasizes, so much, what happened in England, the British slant. Doesn't really matter, I don't give a fig about your motives as long as you respect what Wikipedia needs for an encyclopedia article, and our process.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/62151.html is an article clearly focused on Bradley. This article is sterling evidence, you can bet your bottom dollar on it too, that Yvonne is notable. She's the star of the article, not the prisoner.

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/07/nation/na-gitmo7 is also clearly about Bradley. That was 2006. I'd like to read independent accounts of this (other newspapers), I'm pretty sure they would exist. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E0DD1130F934A35757C0A9609C8B63 has a little on the possible contempt citation. There is lots of source on this woman. --Abd (talk) 23:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Step 2

The next step would probably be to list the major concerns expressed in the AFD and DRV. They should all be listed. Those that can be addressed with trivial efforts should be addressed.

Those that require more work should be assessed -- fairly -- to see whether they should be accommodated. Geo Swan (talk) 22:52, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

collegial collaboration that complies with the community consensus

In response to some comments here -- administrators are volunteers too. And contributors should do their best to be civil to them. The following comment from that discussion is both unhelpful and impolite:

Fannying about with concerns that it "is certain to trigger controversy" should not be an issue.

We have to show respect for those who disagree with us. Sometimes we are going to realize we have been wrong, and they were right all along. When we have been polite about our disagreement, it is a lot easier to cooperate with those we have disagreed with, when we have been polite to them.

In practical terms, certain fora here, like DRV, are overloaded. It is a courtesy to those who participate there to hold back from initiating reviews that are very likely to endorse the original decision. In my relatively limited experience with DRV, participants are very likely to endorse the original conclusion, if the concerns of the apparent majority haven't been addressed, unless the initiator offers very strong reasons for an overturn. The recent request for an overturn of the {{afd}} on Yvonne Bradley lacked significant changes; and it lacked a strong justification for an overturn.

In practical terms that made it not just a waste of time, but actively counter-productive. The regular participants in that forum feel over-worked. And, I believe, they look more closely when a second review is initiated for an article. In practical terms this means that even more work is required to prepare an article for a second review, than would be necessary for a first review.

If the amount of work PJHaseldine and I made in the DRV had been spent improving the article it may well have been more than half-way to the state where the closing administrator would feel comfortable restoring it to article space, without going through a DRV. I continue to believe this is the best approach.

I don't want a phyrric victory. I don't want to work on this article, get it restored -- temporarily -- only to have it deleted because observers resent that it hadn't been modified to address their good faith concerns.

If I am going to work for this article being restored I want to aim for it being permanently restored. Geo Swan (talk) 22:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sensible. I rather dislike fixing an article that then disappears later, and I've been there, done that. I have an ace up my sleeve here, as well. I will play it when and if I believe that it will benefit the project, overall. What I'm standing for is consensus, the informed opinion of the community, both expressed and anticipable, and I'll act to maximize that consensus. Anything else is disruptive. Disruption is noble in some contexts, PJH has, I think, some experience with them. But here, it's the opposite. Sure, it's necessary to confront damaging misbehavior, but it's essential that it be done with the minimum possible disruption, or else it usually backfires, through phenomena I've seen many times in over twenty years of on-line debate. Make trouble, you are the problem, and it doesn't matter if you are "right." It used to amaze me that this was true with on-line debate as well as with real world situations. (There are exceptions in the real world, but sometimes people have to die to establish them.) On-line, there would be a full record, anyone could read, of everything that had transpired, but people would not read it. They would, instead, react to what they saw in front of them. If you are shouting, you are the problem, and what you are shouting about, unless you have done some serious work to establish massive rapport, matters far less.

I'll help with the work here as I can. PJH, be patient. I think it won't take long, but I can't, of course, predict exactly how long it will take. It partly depends, I expect, on how quickly you come up to speed on the idea of editing to satisfy consensus rather than your own POV. Your own POV is part of consensus, don't worry about that. But only a part. We will, I'm quite sure, do right by Yvonne as well as our readers. The article will be so protected against AfD that it's unlikely it will even be attempted. It might expand later, please do realize that! --Abd (talk) 23:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quod erat demonstrandum

The 'to do' list is now done. The article (in my humble view) now passes muster. Quod erat demonstrandum. What more can I say?---PJHaseldine (talk) 18:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with this article's return to article space

I hope Geo Swan will not object to my commenting here, but I wanted to list the issues that I think still exist in this article that will prevent an easy transition into article space that doesn't result in an AfD/DRV that leads to re-deletion. The comments I am about to make do not necessarily represent my evaluation of the merits of the article, so I hope noone reading this will think otherwise. Nor are these "requirements" for a move to article space, since I will make a move at a later time based not only on my own view but on the view of those looking at this page - that last point is a consensus gathering exercise, asking the question "are you confident that this won't be deleted": it will be advisory to me, not binding.
These are some solutions to the problems at AfD, categorised by arguments made, or arguments that will be made:

Only notable for a single event - this is essentially the crux of the issue. At the time I'm writing this, this article risks being pulled up for only covering her involvement in a single case. In fact, all of the main headings for this article relate to a single case. Now, granted, it is a notable case, but the content of these sections appears little more than a coatrack for discussing material already covered elsewhere. Above, Abd shows a source (I think the first one) that discusses Bradley alone. Not independently of this case, admittedly, but it does discuss her other work (hint: use that source!). I can't believe you couldn't use the facts in this source to do a few more searches and document other human rights cases that she has been involved with. If you can find her documented for more than one thing in RS (assuming again, more than a passing mention) and write it in the article, WP:ONEEVENT arguments are weakened
Issues of the weight given to a single aspect of her life. Now, this arguably is the same as the above, except that it is additionally important to ascribe appropriate weighting within the article. A simple way of doing this, believe it or not, would simply be to accumulate all the Binyam material under a single major heading, with sub-headings if necessary. This only works if you include other material, per my first point.
Neutrality issues - technically a cleanup issue, but such articles inevitably (and unfortunately) end up at AfD. Bradley is painted in a very favourable light in this article - reading it, it is clear that the authors admire her work. Whilst she may be deserving of it, for an encyclopedia entry, this is problematic. You may want to consider the merit of material such as "Bradley's promise" for an encyclopedic entry.

The biggest of these issues is the first one - if you document her other work in the article, and any biographical details that you are able to source, then retention following a move to article space is, in my opinion, guaranteed. I can't guarantee that it won't get dragged off for another review, however, and in its current state, I am not convinced that it would survive. I am happy to entertain your thoughts on this matter, however. Fritzpoll (talk) 09:11, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that the crux, as Fritzpoll nicely puts it, is not that Yvonne Bradley is only notable for a single event. Admittedly, the redirect of the deleted Yvonne Bradley article continues to point to Binyam Mohamed#Release. And, if Bradley's 'single event' notability were to be based simply upon Mohamed's successful albeit delayed release, then I might (just possibly) agree that Bradley ain't that notable. But I created the original biography on 10 February 2009, having witnessed Yvonne Bradley's stunning interview with Jon Snow of Channel 4 News on 9 February 2009. I defy anyone to tune in to that Channel 4 News interview and not be impressed that Bradley is notable not just for extricating her client from Gitmo on 23 February 2009, but also for providing the evidence upon which the British government was forced to come to terms with its complicity in the US government-sponsored torture of Guantanamo detainees and also the MI5 collusion in the interrogation of 'enemy combatants' such as Binyam Mohamed.

Bradley (in my humble view) is by no means a 'one-eventer'. She is an iconoclast that can, and will, change the course of world events.---PJHaseldine (talk) 22:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful about the polemic, PJH. I'm not saying you are wrong, but see WP:CRYSTAL. We can only report what has appeared in reliable sources, and we can't take our impressions from an interview and translate them into an enthusiastic article. It's fairly obvious to me that you have a political agenda, that "forcing the British government" to do something is a strong desire for you, and she would be a heroine in that regard. However, find reliable source for what you'd like to be in the article, and it will be there, as far as I'm concerned. Personally, I'm sympathetic to the subject, but I've been sympathetic to more than one subject whose article got deleted because the sources that existed weren't up to snuff, and my personal knowledge does not cut the mustard, nor do I think it should. It will motivate me to search, though. And your POV and desires can thus be useful to us, and that's why I'm so concerned about retaining you as an editor, besides trying to be helfpul. All you need to do is to learn to moderate your behavior here, so that your participation is not disruptive. --Abd (talk) 06:06, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PJH, Fritzpoll gave you very sound advice in how to improve the article. You can ignore it if you like, you don't own the article and it will be cleaned up and improved and taken back to mainspace without you. But you could be very helpful. --Abd (talk) 06:10, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My advice to anyone seeking to improve the Yvonne Bradley biography, Abd, is to use the most reliable sources which would have to include Jon Snow's Channel 4 News interview of 9 February 2009.---PJHaseldine (talk) 10:13, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be muddling up the real-life concept of notability with Wikipedia's definition, which are substantially different. My final comment here is that I am sad to see that in the ten days since I left this article to go on holiday, no further edits have been made. Fritzpoll (talk) 10:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]