User talk:RKN888
This message is posted for Editor Malick78 by Ronald K. Noble on 6 December 2015.
Editor Malick78’s edits to the Wikipedia page about me violate Wikipedia’s “standards (which) require verifiability, neutrality, respect for living people….” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Enforcement#Enforcement by citing a biased sourced article based and by misrepresenting or misleading the reader about the content of the cited article in a way which discredits a living person. As of this date, 6 December 2015, I am assuming that all errors were made in good faith.
I. Bias:
The obvious point of bias is contained in the following sentence used by editor Malick78: “BBC journalist John Sweeney has criticised Noble for endorsing the KGB's investigation, citing critique by the suspect Dmitry Konovalov's mother, Lyubov Kovalyova.” It is one of the most well-established principles of evidentiary law that loving parents are biased in favor of their children. “Typical associations that form the basis for showing bias are family relationships (e.g. mother, father…)” A Practical Guide to Federal evidence, Anthony J. Bocchino, David A. Sonenshein, 2006. Editor Malick78’s response to the challenge of a mother’s bias is “no, citing a mother isn’t always biased.” That’s true, when the mother’s opinion contradicts her natural bias: a loving mother who testifies against her son in a criminal prosecution would not be considered biased. But a loving mother who criticizes the investigation that led to her son’s arrest and conviction would obviously be considered biased. Wikipedia advises editors to “use common sense when interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; there will be occasional exceptions to these rules.” For this reason alone, editor Malick78’s post violated Wikipedia’s standards requiring neutrality.
II. Verifiability & Reliability:
Editor Malick78 has included factual statements that are proven false based on a simple reading of the article that cited by him/her.
A. Editor Malick78’s entry states “John Sweeney has criticized Noble for endorsing the KGB's investigation.” False: 1. Nowhere does the cited article say that Noble endorsed the KGB investigation. The cited article states: “The following month Secretary General Noble arrived in Minsk and praised ‘the high professionalism’ of the Interior Ministry officials for solving the case so quickly - long before their trial took place.” Moreover, the cited article expressly states: “The Secretary General seemed unaware that the KGB led the investigation….”http://www.bbc.com/news/world-19012541
B. Editor Malick78’s entry misleads the reader by implying that the convicted murderer’s mother criticized Noble. He writes: “BBC journalist John Sweeney has criticised Noble for endorsing the KGB's investigation, citing critique by the suspect Dmitry Konovalov's mother, Lyubov Kovalyova.” In fact, the mother never made one reference directly or indirectly to Noble in the cited article. She criticized the investigation itself.
III. Respect for living people:
Wikipedia’s standards show a deep concern for protecting living persons from biased, false and misleading entries about them. I quote: “Purpose: Because living persons may suffer personal harm from inappropriate information, we should watch their articles carefully. This category exists to help Wikipedia editors improve the quality of biographies of living persons by ensuring that the articles maintain a neutral point of view, maintain factual accuracy, and are properly sourced.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Living_people Editor Malick78 has submitted entries that were not neutral; were inaccurate and were not properly sourced.
Example: Editor Malick78 has created a heading in my personal biograph entitled “Criticism for response to Belarus metro bombing.” His entry then misleads the reader into thinking that the independent institution of the BBC and its reporter John Sweeney have produced a neutral article that criticizes me. In fact, the article uses a loving mother’s criticism of the investigation that led to her son’s arrest and conviction for a terrorist attack where 15 innocent persons were killed and injured many more injured. Editor Malick78 distorts the article into making it appear that the mother was criticizing me.
The placement of this section in a Wikipedia personal biography page about me limits my ability to set the record straight. Instead of making corrections in the Wikipedia article entitled “Belarus Metro Bombing” where my voice as an editor could be deemed as neutral, I must correct it on a Wikipedia page about me, where any edits by me would appear biased.
IV. Wikipedia the Encyclopedia and Editor Malick78
I have read some of Editor Malick78’s articles in Wikipedia. Many reflect exhaustive and careful research. He or she has rightfully received compliments for the care taking in creating and editing some of these articles. My dispute with him/her here does not go to his/her integrity or good faith. Instead, it goes to the heart of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia.
I quote from Wikipedia’s own stated purpose which is : “to benefit readers by acting as an encyclopedia, a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge within its five pillars.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Purpose
Indeed, “the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service to the human race.”Diderot[1]
It is my hope that Editor Malick78 will take this long note not as an attack on him/her personally, but as a correction that I hope will lead to a decision by him to exclude from this page of this section, a biased criticism from the mother of a convicted murderer criticizing an investigation--and not me. As I have already said, if Editor Malick78 wishes to highlight criticism of the investigation of the Belarus metro bombing, there is an article that has been created for that purpose.
- Hello again, I just thought I should tell you that I've asked for more perspectives on this issue at this noticeboard here. Regards, Malick78 (talk) 22:24, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
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Conflict of interest policy[edit]
Hello, RKN888. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest. People with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, see the conflict of interest guideline and frequently asked questions for organizations. In particular, please:
- avoid editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, its competitors, or projects and products you or they are involved with;
- instead, propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the
{{request edit}}template); - avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
- exercise great caution so that you do not violate Wikipedia's content policies.
In addition, the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use require disclosure of your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.
Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing, and autobiographies. Thank you. --Ronz (talk) 22:56, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Ronald Noble[edit]
 | Hello, RKN888. This is a courtesy notice that the copy edit you requested for Ronald Noble at the Guild of Copy Editors requests page is now complete. All feedback welcome! Cheers, Baffle☿gab 02:34, 12 July 2019 (UTC) |
Subject of a Wikipedia Article: RKN888 (talk) 04:11, 13 July 2019 (UTC)Neutral & well-established news outlets[edit]
@Bafflegab
Thank you for having taken the time to respond my request for Copy Edit assistance. As you correctly pointed out, the Wikipedia article in question is about me. I do not wish to complain about Wikipedia’s rules as they relate to living persons, but they seem unfair. Any 3d party is allowed to create an article about a living person that is false, misleading and incomplete or that does not follow Wikipedia guidelines, but the living person does not have the ability to correct the errors himself or to hire someone to correct those errors. This seems patently unfair.
I am now trying to use the Copy Edit approach simply to have an article that was created by someone without my knowledge to become a neutral, unbiased and encyclopedic type of article.
I want to use your specific proposed deletion as an example of how Wikipedia’s rules are stacked against living persons. Before doing so, I want you to know that I greatly respect and appreciate how transparent and careful you were about your proposed deletion. Unfortunately, since the language that you deleted was not carefully written, you reached a wrong conclusion that the language did not concern the subject of the Wikipedia article. In addition, since the editor of the deleted language did not use the best citations, you were able to point out his/her citations were lacking.
Let me begin by quoting you:
“CC-BY-SA declaration; text in this section was removed from the article be me; for reasons see below or the article's edit history. I am leaving it here in case its removal breaks any references and so future editors may reuse refs if relevant. Baffle☿gab 02:30, 9 July 2019 (UTC) (this appears to have nothing to do with Ronald Noble, who is not even mentioned in many of the sources.) In 1994, following a plane crash in the south lawn of the White House carried out by Frank Eugene Corder,[1] Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen directed Under Secretary Noble and Secret Service director Eljay B. Bowron to conduct a "thorough and comprehensive" investigation into the circumstances leading to the plane crash.[2][3] In 1995, a public report of the White House Security Review was published, with President Bill Clinton accepting all its recommendations and announcing the closure of the portion of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House on May 21, 1995, restricting movement only to pedestrian traffic to eliminate the threat of any potential car bomb or truck bomb attacks,[4] as well as changes to air traffic rules and other security measures.[3]”
My response to your statement: “This appears to have nothing to do with Ronald Noble, who is not even mentioned in many of the sources.”
Your basis for deletion is clearly stated. First, you believe that the deleted material has nothing to do with Ronald Noble. Second, you write that Ronald Noble is not even mentioned in many of the sources.
Let me first demonstrate why the event that you deleted is significant not only to Ronald Noble but to the United States and therefore should be included in a Wikipedia article.
The White House Security Review overseen by then Under Secretary of Treasury Ronald Noble was ordered after a series of security breaches and terrorist attacks about which many articles were written in the US and around the world. Prior to the White House Security Review’s recommendation to close Pennsylvania to vehicular traffic, there had been an assassination attempt of President Clinton and a suicide plane crash into the White House. There also was the terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City where 168 people were killed on April 19, 1995 less than a month before the White House Security Review that I oversaw recommended closing Pennsylvania Avenue to vehicular traffic.
Neutral articles making clear the importance of the White House Security review:
An LA Times article was entitled, “Clinton Seals Off Traffic from Part of Pennsylvania Ave: White House: Street in front of executive mansion is permanently closed to vehicles. President calls it part of 11-step program to tighten security after terrorist attacks.”
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-21-mn-4461-story.html
In this article, then President Clinton highlights the significance of his decision to close Pennsylvania Avenue to vehicular traffic. I quote: “Clinton noted that Pennsylvania Avenue has remained open to vehicular traffic for 130 years, "through four presidential assassinations and eight unsuccessful attempts on the lives of presidents . . . through a civil war, two world wars and the Gulf War."
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-21-mn-4461-story.html
This article also makes clear how extensive the White House Security Review was. I quote: “The advisory committee reviewed more than 1,000 documents and interviewed 250 individuals, including former presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George Bush, and experts from eight nations with considerable experience with terrorism. It drafted a top-secret, 500-page report with a 260-page appendix; Five of its 11 recommendations remain classified.”
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-21-mn-4461-story.html
Now, let me turn to your observations which are understandable in light of the text as written in the Wikipedia article. You write: “this appears to have nothing to do with Ronald Noble.”
The language in the Wikipedia article states: “In 1994, following a plane crash in the south lawn of the White House carried out by Frank Eugene Corder,[1] Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen directed Under Secretary Noble and Secret Service director Eljay B. Bowron to conduct a "thorough and comprehensive" investigation into the circumstances leading to the plane crash.[2][3] “
This declarative sentence was imprecise in that it uses the label “Under Secretary Noble” when referring to who was directed to conduct a “thorough and comprehensive” investigation of White House security. It should say “Under Secretary Ronald Noble.” Earlier in the Wikipedia article, it states, “In 1993, Noble was appointed the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement, being placed in charge of the Secret Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the Customs Service Office of Enforcement, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.[4][9]” Therefore, one could deduce that the Under Secretary Noble referred to in this paragraph is in fact Under Secretary Ronald Noble, but you are right that it is not clear as currently written.
Once it is clear that the Under Secretary Noble referred to in this paragraph is the same Ronald Noble about whom this Wikipedia article was created, and the same Ronald Noble was ordered to oversee the entire White House Security Review, then the deleted material has everything to do with Ronald Noble.
Neutral citations referring to Ronald Noble as overseeing the White House Security Review:
Regarding your second point, you write: “Ronald Noble … is not even mentioned in many of the sources.”
Again, you are correct. The sources that were cited in this article do not clearly mention Ronald Noble’s name, but this problem can easily be corrected. I have very little familiarity with Wikipedia’s detailed rules, but I researched “types of content removal” and the sub-heading “unsourced information.”
I quote:
“Unsourced information[edit source] Shortcut • WP:USI
Wikipedia's verifiability guidelines require all information to be citable to sources. When information is unsourced, and it is doubtful any sources are available for the information, it can be boldly removed.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_removal
There are many neutral, independent and credible sources to support the statement that Ronald Noble oversaw the White House Security Review that gave the recommendation to close Pennsylvania Avenue to vehicular traffic and that Ronald Noble was tasked by then Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen to conduct a review of White House security.
1. New York Times:
“Treasury Under Secretary Ronald K. Noble, who oversees the Secret Service and heads the committee of security experts, declined to comment today about its conclusions or the Administration's plan to close Pennsylvania Avenue. But other officials said Mr. Noble had told them he was concerned about the possibility of a car bomb and would like to see the avenue closed to vehicles.” https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/10/us/security-plan-close-pennsylvania-avenue.html
2. LA Times:
“Ronald K. Noble, undersecretary of the Treasury for enforcement, was overseeing the investigation.” https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-24-mn-5471-story.html
3. UPI:
“Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, who oversees the service, ordered Noble to undertake a 90-day review of the security for Clinton and his family, which will parallel the sweeping probe of the crash by the Secret Service, the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board and the District of Columbia police force.”
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/09/12/Probe-begins-into-White-House-plane-crash/8392779342400/
4. Washington Post:
“It's not clear whether the advisory committee's proposal has the support of Ronald K. Noble, undersecretary of the treasury for enforcement, or his boss, Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, who will forward the panel's report to Clinton, possibly next week.”
5. Orlando Sentinel:
“But Noble's report made clear how vulnerable the White House remained to an assailant. For example, he disclosed that Frank Eugene Corder, the pilot who crashed below the president's bedroom window last year, had his plane's wing flaps up and his throttle at full forward, which led investigators to conclude that he had intended to crash in a suicide mission.”
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1995-05-21-9505210399-story.html
6. The Daily Pennsylvanian:
“The advisory committee, which will be chaired by the Under Secretary for Enforcement Ron Noble, will review "every aspect of how the White House could be attacked, from the ground or from the air," Bentsen said during a press conference.”
https://www.thedp.com/article/1994/11/pres-rodin-named-to-white-house-safety-panel
Conclusion:
Using my Wikipedia account, I requested a copy edit of an article in a transparent manner where a major editor has a close connection with me. You rightly pointed out language that was not as clear as it could be. You also rightly indicated that Ronald Noble was not even mentioned in many of the sources used.
If the event in question is notable and would be included in any encyclopedia, if it is linked to the subject of the article and if it is properly sourced, then it should be included, not deleted.
Next Steps:
I do not wish to get involved in a dispute with a thoughtful editor such as yourself who took the time to respond to my request for a copy edit. I also will not add back the language that you deleted, but I would just appreciate your giving me guidance as to how a living person can make sure that a Wikipedia article created about him is accurate if he cannot make it accurate himself or if he cannot hire someone who indicates his conflict of interest to make corrections/additions/deletions?
Again, thank you for the time that you have devoted to this issue.
RKN888 (talk) 04:11, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
- Hi Ronald; I've replaced the plane crash paragraph with a few changes; I removed the first reference (doesn't mention you) and added an archived url for the Orlando Sentinel source, which I'm blocked from accessing directly. I hope that's acceptable to you; I'm now leaving this article alone. Cheers and good luck with it. Baffle☿gab 03:31, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Hello, @Baffle☿gab, Thank you again for having taken the time to point out ways in which this section of the article could be improved. Your suggested changes are clear, accurate and neutral. Kindest regards, RKN888 (talk) 07:01, 15 July 2019 (UTC)