Talk:Defense Distributed

Care to explain what is going on?
I have never seen Wikipedia censored as it just was. What is the most harmful thing that could've been added with 75 characters? Links to surviving copies of the Liberator blueprints? The article more or less tells you how to find them as it is. Connor Behan (talk) 18:44, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't understand, what just happened? I'm confused, can you explain and elaborate? &mdash; Cirt (talk) 23:41, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Look at the history of the article on May 11. Three revisions were made unviewable without anyone involved having the decency to tell us why. Connor Behan (talk) 02:44, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * See Revision deletion, more info at public logs, lots of reasons that could be that might have nothing to do with the article's topic itself. Best to focus on further research on the article in additional WP:RS and WP:V secondary sources. Cheers, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 02:48, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The only additional info given by the logs is that this had something to do with the removal of a link. The criteria at WP:CRD say that an admin should "give a clear reason for the removal." It seems that either User:Fred Bauder or User:The Anome is in violation of this. Connor Behan (talk) 05:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If I had to hazard a guess, if a link was removed then it was most likely a link to a location to download the liberator 3d-printed gun. They deleted the log entry to avoid the possibility of them coming under ITAR regulations as well.68.62.102.48 (talk) 08:29, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * These actions were not based on any firm policy. A provisional deletion was made and the matter passed on to legal. But, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/09/3d-printed-guns-plans-state-department I would say, broadly, that this falls within What Wikipedia is not. We are not cutting-edge, read bleeding-edge, activists on the front line. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:01, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Also http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/05/14/diy-firearms-makers-already-replicating-and-remixing-the-3d-printed-gun-photos/ User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:11, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. We should stick to what is documented in secondary sources that satisfy WP:RS and WP:V. :) Cheers, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 18:43, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the replies. I agree that posting a link to the blueprints (if that's what User:Nowheremano did on May 11) is inappropriate because it is a primary source and not neutral. When such an edit is made, it should be reverted or even redacted which is what happened. I have no interest in owning a gun and I am not looking for the blueprints. However, my issue is with transparency. A user reading the history can still only see that revisions were deleted and that the edit summary explaining why was also deleted. Am I to understand that an explanation will be put back into the edit summary once the legal team has responded? Connor Behan (talk) 09:20, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed that some sort of explanatory edit summary would've been appropriate. However, best to focus further discussion and energies on improving the quality of this article with secondary sources. That would be most encyclopedic, and educational, for all readers and editors alike, but it would most help to serve the readers. :) &mdash; Cirt (talk) 15:36, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Two additional articles
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/05/31/gun-control-just-got-even-more-difficult/

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/23/govt-memo-warns-3d-printed-guns-may-be-impossible-to-stop/

(Probably can find non-fox refs for the second one) Gaijin42 (talk) 15:55, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Good summary of the legal cases
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3680235 Terrorist96 (talk) 03:24, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Citation issues
A lot of the information in this article is cited more like a term paper than an encyclopedia article. There are several instances of citation overkill (WP:OVERKILL) and needless repetition. This is not only unnecessary, but it also makes the article nearly impossible to read in edit mode, thus making it difficult to add to or edit.

Many of the sources used for citations are good, but this by itself does not mean it should be included. Wikipedia articles should not be link farms. Cite when necessary for verifiability, but consider that if information is not likely to be challenged (i.e. straight, factual information), you don't need multiple citations to prove a point.

Additionally, do not cite terms in a sentence with a source, and then add the same source to site the sentence. This is an example of needless repetition (WP:REPCITE). There is also no need to cite each sentence in a paragraph with the same source - just provide the source one time at the end. I've removed some of both of these types of instances.

If someone does want to bring back some of the additional references and is not overciting, try to use a style that avoids inline citation clutter (WP:INLINECITECLUTTER).

Butlerblog (talk) 20:02, 13 December 2020 (UTC)