Talk:David Mendes da Silva

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Drug trafficking
First, the responsibility to gain consensus is on the person who wants to add new material (see WP:ONUS). Secondly, part of my issue with your addition is that it's got awkward phrasing (preparing the import) that you have copied directly from the article.

I've added in that it was a lot of cocaine, and that the sentence was also for selling. I don't think the size emphasis needs to go in the lead, which is a summary, and the details would go in the main paragraph anyway. If you think there should be more specific information, this is the place to discuss why. EasyAsPai (talk) 17:25, 7 February 2024 (UTC)


 * The changes you've made to the article are less precise, and you made those changes without first seeking a consensus here on the Wikipedia talk page, even after I requested that you first seek a consensus here on the Talk page. Please acknowledge that you made changes before achieving a consensus. I have reverted your changes, and would like to request that you refrain from making further changes until a consensus has been made.
 * Also, you're wrong about there being just one article, there's multiple different articles describing this. I've added another source article from the previous two, there's now 3 different source articles, including two from major news media companies, both The Sun and The Mirror. And why make the article less precise and omit highly significant details due to "phrasing"? You could have changed the phrasing without omitting significant details.
 * "Large quantities" is very loose, while "including importing two consignments of cocaine weighing more than 70 kilos each, as well as preparing an import of a cocaine package weighing 1,300 kilos" is specific and informative, and is highlighted by the sources. And it is clearly noteworthy that a former high profile footballer was sentenced to prison for trafficking enormous amounts of cocaine, including bribing a person for the very large sum of €100,00, as both sources state. One source article even has as its headline the word "ton" capitalized given how enormous an amount of 1,300 kilos of cocaine is. The details would not be as significant if the amount he was found guilty of was 100 grams, and I could've understood you omitting it if it was 100 grams, but 70 kilos of cocaine is a huge amount, not something a casual user or dealer would be involved with. And bribing an official for €100,00 related to preparing an import of 1,300 kilos of cocaine is decidedly noteworthy. The Netherlands had a record catch of 8 tons of cocaine last year, https://www.dw.com/en/netherlands-cocaine-seized-by-customs-in-record-8-ton-haul/a-66497840, and 1,300 kilos of cocaine is in the same order of magnitude as that record "Netherlands: Cocaine seized by customs in record 8-ton haul" (which in that article is described as having a price of €600 million).
 * Are you neutral? Are you related to the person in the article, or a fan of him? Please declare your neutrality, and if you aren't neutral, please refrain from doing anything with this article from now on, and let others edit it instead. And please achieve a consensus here before removing significant details, and don't use the justification of poor phrasing to remove highly and clearly significant details. 2A02:AA7:4047:5A9D:9A5E:188E:EAE3:13D4 (talk) 10:57, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
 * First of all, I was attempting a compromise, rather that wholesale reversion of your changes. I don't particularly consider your new version a compromise, but I'll be polite and wait for consensus here before I change things.
 * Second, editors are not required to be perfectly neutral about a subject - everyone has biases - but they are required to be free of conflict of interest. I have no conflict of interest here, and to ask me to defend my neutrality is kind of the height of not assuming good faith.  If it will put your mind at ease, though, I'll tell you that I'd never heard of this guy before my first reversion of your addition, I do not follow him or his team or his sport or even his continent in sports, and I haven't even read the rest of the article.  The sum total of my knowledge of him comes from the sources you provided about his arrest for drug trafficking.
 * My concern isn't about "poor phrasing," it's that it skates on a copyright violation.
 * Here are my thoughts on the current version you've put together:
 * - I don't think the bribery needs to go in the lead. None of the sources mention that the bribery was separate from the drug trafficking, so it's redundant to say that he went to jail for trafficking and bribery.
 * - We try not to put a bunch of references in the lead, since it's a summary of the article and the sources can go in the article, so maybe one article there to show that it isn't unsourced and move the rest down.
 * - For the main section, how about this as a rewrite, which includes specific numbers, the bribery amount, and no copyright violation.
 * In August 2022, Mendes da Silva was arrested as part of an investigation into drug trafficking in the Netherlands. It was alleged that he bribed a shipping clerk €100,000 to find out the locations of shipping containers holding drugs. In 2023 he was found guilty of directly importing 179 kilos of cocaine, assisting in the import of more than 1,300 kilos of cocaine, and of selling drugs. Mendes da Silva was sentenced to seven years in prison. EasyAsPai (talk) 15:00, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I did want to assume good faith, but you reverted even after I requested in the changelog that you discuss the topic before doing anymore reversions. Why not discuss the topic before doing reversions, when I directly requested it? I didn't take days to answer or react either. I do appreciate your statement and the time that you've taken to respond to this.
 * I don't understand why copyright violation would be an issue at all, the text is very short, and the source used is given clearly and directly. If it was multiple paragraphs lifted, it would've been an issue, but I don't see it for a single short paragraph. But I'm also not an experienced Wikipedia editor, I'll let you be the judge of it. I do admit that I didn't catch that it was copyright violation that you had an issue with, when you wrote Secondly, part of my issue with your addition is that it's got awkward phrasing (preparing the import) that you have copied directly from the article., I focused on the word awkward. Thank you for informing me about and clarifying the concepts of "biases" and "conflict of interest" in terms of the rules of Wikipedia, I wasn't aware of those.
 * I have read some of the articles again, and after giving it some thought, I want to keep the wording "preparing", since it may be more accurate. The article of The Sun has the sentence He was then found guilty of preparing the import of another 1300 kilos of cocaine but was acquitted on suspicion of aiding and abetting the import., where the court allegedly differentiated between "preparing" and "aiding and abetting". And while copyright violation is a concern, with it being one paragraph and the sources being referenced in the same paragraph, it should be fine from my perspective. I did lean heavily on the first article source when I added the original paragraph in the first edit a few days ago, though I tried to put it together and change it to make it up to date and fit the Wikipedia article, and I did add a reference to the source at the end of the paragraph. I try to be careful when rewording texts, and rewording can be a bit iffy to me, since there's the danger of introducing inaccuracies. I'm not a legal expert, which only makes me more iffy about rewording in this article topic that involves prosecution and sentencing. And giving sources is more important than rewording either way, though you can do both of course. Also consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphrasing_of_copyrighted_material. That said, in some contexts, texts taken from other sources should for instance be clearly presented as quotations from those sources or handled in some way, where giving sources is necessary but also not sufficient.
 * I didn't know that having a bunch of references in the lead is avoided, I can see that. I'll move the references down.
 * I feel like it's fine to include the part about bribery in the lead, €100,000 feels like so large an amount of money that a bribe of that size is significant by itself. I could see it if the bribe was only like €100, which conversely would probably not be worth mentioning at all in the article. Or a bribe of €5,000, which could be omitted in the lead and maybe included in the section below. €100,000 is a large amount of money.
 * I have published a new version of the article, I've mostly tried to more or less follow your thoughts, though I also changed some other things. I've kept the part with the bribe in the lead, is that good with you? 2A02:AA7:4047:5A9D:9A5E:188E:EAE3:13D4 (talk) 17:03, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Also I kept the wording with "preparing", due to carefulness with preserving the original meaning and trying to avoid inaccuracy. 2A02:AA7:4047:5A9D:9A5E:188E:EAE3:13D4 (talk) 17:14, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I reverted the second time because, as I said, the onus is on the person adding content to start a discussion, not the person removing it.
 * It has become very clear to me that you care significantly more about this article and the specific wording than I do, and as you continue to make changes to the article during this discussion (after you admonished me for doing so, and after I agreed not to), I am going to leave you to it. There are better uses of my time and energy on Wikipedia.
 * I'd encourage you to start discussions in the future if you get reverted, instead of expecting someone else to do it. EasyAsPai (talk) 00:10, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Your answers are puzzling to me, in particular since I tried to accommodate your thoughts as I wrote, and meant the latest changes as a proposal, like I wrote in the description of the change, and the change I made most recently was not a reversion of changes you made, but new changes meant to accommodate your thoughts, and I asked you questions such that I could change them further to accommodate your further thoughts as well as get your acceptance and establish a consensus. And you directly admit here that, instead of respecting my explicit request to first start a discussion here on the talk page before doing reversions, you went ahead and reverted my changes.
 * And why not address that a source article explicitly differentiated between "preparing" and "aiding and abetting", with the court claiming that Mendes da Silva was found guilty of the former and not found guilty of the latter? Isn't that directly relevant to your objection of using the word "preparing"? Wasn't a main part of why you reverted my changes that "Secondly, part of my issue with your addition is that it's got awkward phrasing (preparing the import) that you have copied directly from the article."? Isn't "preparing" most accurate to use if it's different in legal terms from "aiding and abetting" according to a source article?
 * Could you explain these things? I find your answers deeply puzzling, especially as I tried to be diplomatic, and also hoped to share insights with you. 2A02:AA7:4047:5A9D:274F:C276:6173:721E (talk) 01:24, 9 February 2024 (UTC)