Talk:Charles Rackoff

National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women comments
I added a sentence on Rackoff's comments on the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. I think reasonable people can disagree on the matter, but I believe it's worthy of being mentioned in his biographical stub. It is sourced with a CBC article.

~ben —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.253.229 (talk) 21:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * In my opinion it's undue weight. If he doesn't have some sort of ongoing campaign over this issue, it's just a single event that happened ten years ago. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Disagree, think it gives insight into the individual and is worthy of inclusion in the bio. (Jonathanwallace (talk) 15:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I chopped it, per WP:NOT and WP:BLP. We don't report trivial campus news events, even if they get echoed in the wires. This incident has no bearing on the subject's notability. I quote from BLP: "Wikipedia contains biographical material on people who, while notable enough for an entry, are not generally well known. In such cases, exercise restraint and include only material relevant to their notability...." Ray Talk 16:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I also support the removal for the reasons as per Ray and Demiurge. Off2riorob (talk) 17:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I am new to Wikipedia (only editing actively for a couple months) but wanted to state the reasons for my disagreement. While I would agree with the deletion if it was a third party's opinion that the subject is a bigot, no matter how well sourced, what I see here is the subject's own use of the status which makes him notable, his academic position, as a platform to express his views on a public issue. If I were a reporter or writer searching Rackoff here as preliminary research for an article about or mentioning him, I would find the deleted material significant, and I think its deletion violates NPOV by essentially white washing the subject. I think Wikipedia biographies should reflect the whole person based on their own writings and utterances, not their carefully groomed "best" version of their persona. Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, are there anymore reports about this, other citations? has it continued to be discussed, or was it a simple titillating story at the time? All these things need to be considered, he apparently was not reprimanded or it had no affect of his career at all, he had been a professor for so long, that is what we are here to report not that he sent a silly email and doesn't like feminists as a half of his life story, its a matter of weight. From my searches it would appear that this wikipedia is now the main propagator of this detail and we should take care not to be the main vessel for content that may reflect unduly poorly or be detrimental to a living person as imo this content presented as it was does. Off2riorob (talk) 18:06, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Well, firstly, the article really doesn't "reflect the whole person" yet, because it's way too short to do so. That's why the material was undue weight. If the article was several pages long and went into considerable detail about his various work, a neutral overview of any relevant aspects of his personal life, et cetera, then yes it might be justifiable to mention the email incident (usually somewhere near the end). Second, yes it's true that many reporters or writers would prefer the controversial material over the material for which the person is actually notable, but that doesn't mean that an encyclopedia should have to focus on controversial material unduly. And third, I think you slightly exaggerate "an e-mail sent to departmental colleagues" in saying it's using his status as a platform on a public issue. If he'd included these views in a public lecture or emailed them to a newspaper using his academic credentials then yes you could view it that way. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

What this dispute is about
I find that as a relative Wikipedia newbie it is often very hard to find the actual now-deleted content which is being debated on a discussion page. I understand vanishing it entirely if it is libelous or unsourced, but in this case no-one seems to disagree that these are the subject's own statements as accurately reported by CBC. While I will not try to re-add the content to the main article, as the subject is not important enough to me personally and I would like to have a Wikipedia editing history free of edit wars, here is the link to the article from which the deleted quote was drawn: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2000/12/07/massacre_email001207.html Jonathanwallace (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The history tab at the top of the page is how we access that content, FYI. Ray  Talk 18:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but that material is a lot harder for new-comers and outsiders to view and understand correctly than a simple link posted here on the discussion page. By the way, please compare the bio of Ward Churchill, a professor who prior to getting in trouble for unsympathetic statements about 9/11 victims was already notable for his prior work on Native American issues. Following the same line of thought successfully applied here, we would delete any mention from his bio of Churchill's unfortunate foot-in-mouth moment and the consequences. Jonathanwallace (talk) 18:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What consequences? Churchill was fired. Was Rackoff fired? Was he reprimanded? All indicators say that this was a nonevent, in both his life and to society at large. This is a biography of Rackoff, and we should only cover things that are significant, either to his life or to his reason for notability. This email doesn't seem to have any broader significance whatsoever. Ray  Talk 18:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

(resetting indents) The following is a copy of a post I just made at the BLP noticeboard illustrating why I think deletion of the material is a radically wrong result under every applicable standard, uncluding WP:NPF, WP:RS, WP:V, WP:BLP etc etc: Charles Rackoff's comments in question were sent in his campus email to faculty and staff of the university. They were covered on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation web site as already mentioned. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2000/12/07/massacre_email001207.html Also in The Globe and Mail (165 year old Canadian newspaper with circulation of 307,330 national edition) Colin Freeze, "Klan Furor Mars Massacre Vigil", December 7, 2000. Rackoff was quoted by one of the legislators in a session of the Ontario Legislative Assembly, http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do;jsessionid=c72d607830d85bc305417ae040bfb3efc4adab5c5f0f.e3eQbNaNa3eRe3aOaNyNaN0Pay1ynknvrkLOlQzNp65In0?locale=en&Parl=37&Sess=2&Date=2001-12-06 His remarks also received extensive coverage and commentary in student newspapers at Canadian universities, http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/pdfs/ubyssey/UBYSSEY_2001_01_23.pdf, http://mediumonline.ca/backissues/Archives/January8/default.html http://www.themanitoban.com/system/manit/issues/000/004/083/2Dec2009_final_screen_quality.pdf?1259651997 According to one of these accounts, the president of Rackoff's university issued a statement calling his words "repugnant" but defending his academic freedom (similar comments of university spokesperson quoted in CBC piece). Rackoff's statement was discussed in a law review article, "Civil Disobedience and Academic Freedom", by Leslie Green in the Osgood Hall Law Journal http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/ncanefe/docs/civil%20disobeidience%20and%20academic%20freedom%20by%20L_%20Green.pdf Ironically, Rackoff's email is quoted in the Wikipedia article on the Montreal Massacre, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_massacre (must we now delete that too?) To sum up, Rackoff used his position as a professor to express an opinion in a widely disseminated email sent from his university account, defended his views in an interview with the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, and was criticized by his own employer. But its not a PUBLIC matter and should not appear in his neatly groomed Wikipedia biography. A radically wrong result, people. Yours in distress Jonathanwallace (talk) 02:04, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

JonathanWallace,

The following is a copy of the post I just put on the BLP noticeboard, defending the deletion of the article: If the proposal of removal of the CBC article were an attempt to white-wash the blemished career of an academic, then I agree fully that the suppression of these articles and this discussion would be wrong. It is now clear to me that the main reason this article (and event) deserves suppression from Rackoff's biography is that none of these sources, despite their appearance in prominent Canadian news outlets, are a balanced account, nor do they even contain enough facts to draw any conclusions.

Here are the only facts I can see. We have a quote from Rackoff in an email, the fact that this quote was distributed to the U of T campus, and that Rackoff did not retreat from his position in an interview.

All context of this email is missing. Did Rackoff really write to entire campus? Or did he communicate this statement to an individual by email, and this was eventually copied to the rest of the campus? Did Rackoff really have nothing to communicate in the interview other than a refusal to retreat from his position? Or was what he had to say so reasonable and airtight that any quote could only provoke sympathy for the professor?

The poverty of facts admits almost any explanation (and I feel the current suggestions are attempts to find controversy at the expense of a decorated academic). To call such accounts journalism is what is truly repugnant. Perpetuating this sensationalism does a disservice not only to Rackoff, but to free speech and, ultimately, democracy.

If Rackoff, completely unprovoked, spammed the campus with an email saying little more than `Feminism is the Klan!', this certainly would be an abuse of his position as professor and the University would be unconstrained by freedom of speech concerns in seeking his removal. Instead, we have some condemnations but little else (which to me suggests there was much internal turmoil over this event, further suggesting there is much more to the story than we are hearing).

The ultimate absurdity to me is that Rackoff's quote is expressing real sympathy for the victims, and frustration at the idea that these people are being forgotten when we are use this event as a political platform. Sure, this is expressed in a bombastic way, but that sentiment should be evident, especially in the context of the memorial. Other readings - such as Leslie Green's - are facile at best, and deliberate misinterpretations at worst.

In closing, all accounts of this very brief snapshot of Rackoff's life are very sketchy and to entertain them in a biography as short as Rackoff's cannot be considered fair or balanced by any stretch. This remains only a topic of discussion due to wikipedia, not because of continued notability. Removal of them from the biography is the right action and one that has now been taken. I hope we can consider this matter closed.

--Emil post (talk) 22:07, 19 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Dr. Rackoff's emails are a textbook case of being reliably sourced, and were reported in various articles as having been sent widely from his campus account to faculty and staff of the university. Moreover, when he was interviewed by Canadian Broadcast Corporation he confirmed and defended the email and its point of view. He is actually arguably more notable for having participated in this controversy than for his cryptography work, which has not earned him coverage in CBC or in the Globe and Mail in the same time frame. Deletion of the reference from the main article ignores every other Wikipedia standard of verifiability, sourcing and neutral point of view, in favor of an approach which protects subjects against coverage of their own controversial actions. I suggest you read the WP:BLP standards and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoiding_harm, which contains the following:

"The 'do no harm' principle does not justify the removal of relevant negative information about a living person. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and articles must be written from a neutral point of view. Thus, they must represent fairly and without bias all significant views and information (that have been published by reliable sources)."


 * I can't help asking: from your user page, it appears to me you have just recently opened a Wikipedia account and have participated only on this one issue. I am curious if you know Dr. Rackoff personally (or even are him)? Jonathanwallace (talk) 22:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If he is, then you are arguing that WP:BLP1E applies to him, Jonathan. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:37, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Demiurge: In borderline cases like the recently deleted Kenneth Kyle, a professor who was arrested for rape, I would rather see a bio deleted than see it survive in a whitewashed version, which I believe violates NPOV. If you want to nominate Rackoff for deletion, I will not oppose that. I just find it startling and hard to justify that the man deliberately inserted himself into a public debate, confirmed his viewpoint in a CBC interview, was criticized by the university and mentioned in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, and is even quoted in the Wikipedia article on the Montreal Massacre, but due to some misconceived BLP:Niceness standard his remarks can't be mentioned in his bio. Jonathanwallace (talk) 23:06, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * OMG they deleted Kenny??? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Best laugh of the day. Thanks. Jonathanwallace (talk) 00:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You have no dispute from me that the quote is Rackoff's, and that it was originally communicated in the email. However neither the CBC article nor the G&M article support your interpretation that the emails are reliably sourced as having been broadly distributed by him.
 * What follows are the relevant passages from Freeze's article concerning the delivery of Rackoff' email:

"As Canadians marked the 1989 massacre of 14 female students at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique yesterday, a senior academic at the University of Toronto launched an e-mail missive comparing such memorials to Ku Klux Klan propaganda. Charles Rackoff, a computer-sciences professor, responded to a message about one of the school's commemorative events by calling the White Ribbon Day ceremonies `an excuse to promote the Feminist/Extreme-left-wing agenda' ... Specifically, in response to an e-mailed announcement of a memorial service, Prof. Rackoff wrote: [the quote]."


 * The wording in the CBC article is similarly ambiguous. Without any more context, there is nothing to refute the possibility that Rackoff's comments were communicated to an individual and redistributed by persons other than him.  Note that if I had all of a person's correspondence to select three sentences from, I could suggest all kinds of things about all kinds of people.--Emil post (talk) 07:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * When I raised this issue, it was unclear to me that the CBC article did not represent a relatively minor incident that would have been forgotten were it not for the wikipedia link on man was on account of his notoreity as a research in his field.. Given the Globe and Mail article, it's clear this story did have a lot more coverage and I now agree that suppressing this incident is wrong.  I think that your current suggestion, below, is a good way to take note of this event without giving it undue weight. --Emil post (talk) 19:30, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to Re-Insert Content
I propose to add a sentence at the end of the bio as follows: "Dr. Rackoff's comments on the 2000 memorial for the victims of the Montreal Massacre were reported in Canadian media." Alternately, we could add a "for" reference, eg, "For Dr. Rackoff's comments, etc. I believe either would satisfy all applicable standards, and all objections appropriately raised by anyone, under BLP, RS, and WEIGHT, and is in fact required by NPOV. I will wait a decent interval for comments and disagreement. I am also happy to reactivate this on the BLP:Noticeboard,  and will do so before actually making the edit. Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Put the ref at the end of the sentence. If this will make the problem go away, I'm okay with it. Putting in the full quote is still a WP:UNDUE violation, but you've made a decent case above (particularly in the academic articles) that this incident has made its way into history. Ray Talk 22:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Ray. I will certainly put the ref at the end. I will wait at least a few days to see if anyone else responds, before making the edit. Jonathanwallace (talk) 23:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, we need at least some mention. I'd include that he criticised the "feminist/extreme left-wing agenda" of the memorial, to give some context as to what his view was and why it was controversial, otherwise the inclusion will be too opaque. Fences  &amp;  Windows  23:28, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Fences--I personally agree but am proposing a compromise which is deliberately a bit opaque because this topic has been near beaten to death here and on the BLP noticeboard and resulted in deletion of all mention of Dr. Rackoff's comments. I am trying to strike a balance between majority opinion on the board and what I personally believe NPOV requires. I think an otherwise opaque reference is an acceptable compromise. Jonathanwallace (talk) 23:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I think this may be a reasonable proposal. Let me think about it a little more.--Emil post (talk) 07:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC) Yes, this is reasonable; it is factually accurate and verifiable without skewing the article. --Emil post (talk) 19:39, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Emil. I will probably make it its own paragraph, but otherwise looks fine. Jonathanwallace (talk) 23:51, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

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