Talk:Derrick Watson

Unwarranted Page Protection on Derrick Watson, and Possible Administrative Bias
A Message to MelanieN Requesting the Removal of Unwarranted Page Protection:

First, in case I missed something, I would like to ask that you list the specific edits that you believe constituted "Persistent Vandalism". None of the previous revisions on the page mention anything about vandalism or the need to prevent persistent vandalism, so how did you conclude that the page needed to be protected from vandalism? There are a couple of comments that mention "biased commentary", but stating that "20,000 unauthorized immigrants live in Hawaii who are allowed to get driver licenses on the account of legal citizens under this judge" or that the Judge graduated from Harvard "the same year as President Obama" is not "biased commentary". Those are not opinions, they are statements of fact. Either the information is factual, or it is not, but it is certainly not "biased commentary". However, it would be rather biased to remove factual information from an article because that information conflicts with the editor's opinions and with the non-neutral political narrative they are attempting to create. It would also biased to protect a page in order solely to prevent factual information from being communicated to the public. I looked through a dozen or so edits, and I saw nothing that came anywhere near Wikipedia's definition of vandalism. Just because edits are controversial does not mean they amount to vandalism. Page protection must not be used as a means of censorship, of forcing one political party's perspective and sense of the facts pertaining to the page onto the page while silencing the factual statements of others, or worse yet, of using one's privileges as an administrator to take revenge against one's political opponents. The Judge's ruling was that the Executive Order was unconstitutional, on the basis that it violated Muslims' religious freedom, but there are probably many other Judges and millions of Americans, not to mention an Attorney General and a sitting U.S. President, who believe that this Judge violated the Constitution by using his Judicial authority to prevent the President from exercising his constitutional powers, not because he made a law, or signed an executive order "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" (the executive order is based on nationality, the high incidences of terrorism in those nations, and the fact that we are currently at war with groups within those nations, and that those nations have, in the past, been known to coalesce into empires, invade Europe, and massacre people on the basis of their religion; the travel restrictions affect Muslim majority countries because we are at war in those countries, because we have repeatedly been attacked by those nations ever since the Barbary Wars, and because many people within those countries want the United States government to be overthrown by force and replaced with a Muslim government that would prohibit the free exercise of all non-Muslim religions, as it is in their countries, not because Trump is attempting to establish a state religion within the United States, which is what the 1st Amendment was designed to prevent). There is a growing perspective that this Judge and numerous others in the United States seem to be making their Judicial rulings on the basis of their political affiliations and their political ideology. If there is any truth in that very serious allegation, or even if that allegation is merely believed by a significant portion of the public and the government, then the belief that Judges are abusing their power and violating the same Constitution that they claim to be upholding will inevitably result in a constitutional crisis unlike anything the United States has ever experienced. The next step in this crisis might be the arrest of these Judges on the grounds that they have violated the Constitution, jeopardized our national security, and aided our enemies, which might lead to retaliatory actions by the other party. Ultimately, this is how civil wars begin, nations are torn apart, and democracies become empires. Obviously, it is better to resolve this issue through dialogue if possible, but "page protection", censorship, and divisive and deceptive media and political narratives are making such dialogue impossible, which considerably increases the risk that this issue will be resolved through force, as such issues have been resolved more often than not throughout history. The stakes are quite high. I hope you understand that. All of the facts that pertain to this Judge's ruling, its constitutionality, and its implications for the United States and the world must be permitted to be posted, not just the facts that either support or contradict one particular political party's agenda. If the Wikipedia page on this Judge is going to note the Judge's ruling and his rational for that ruling, then that page must also note this brewing Constitutional crisis, the Constitutional provisions which prohibit un-elected Judges from engaging in partisan politics to obstruct the other two democratically elected branches of government from exercising their lawful powers, and the President's justification for the Executive Order. In other words, this page must "represent fairly, proportionately, and, as far AS POSSIBLE, without editorial bias, ALL of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic," in order for this page to comply with Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policy. Therefore, I must ask that you remove the page protection from this page so that all of the relevant facts pertaining to this page may come to light. If there is vandalism that has occurred or that may occur in the future, then you should remove the vandalism and punish the vandals (without showing any bias for one political party over another whatsoever). You may be politically biased as a private citizen, but not as a Wikipedia Administrator. Do not punish the whole world, your nation, and everyone who would like to either read or edit this page just because one or two people decided to vandalize it (an allegation you've made which I've found no evidence of), and absolutely do not use your administrative privileges to push a certain political narrative while silencing others who might furnish facts that disprove or contradict the political narrative of the party you identify with (an unfortunate, unjust, abusive and very damaging practice that is becoming increasingly common among Wikipedia Admins). Please also provide a detailed explanation for your decision to protect this page in the first place. 24.119.20.133 (talk) 20:50, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Political POV pushing is not allowed on Wikipedia, and you just put forward a heavy dose of that, IP editor. Conservapedia is that-a-way. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  21:17, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Call it vandalism, or disruptive editing, or what you will. The problem was the addition of commentary and opinion to the article.   Wikipedia is for factual reporting, not for commentary or opinion. Note that this type of edit was coming from both sides of the political spectrum. This often happens with articles about people who have recently been in the news, and the article requires semi-protection until the subject stops being a target. There were also productive edits coming from unregistered users, and it is unfortunate that they also got locked out when protection is necessary, but that's the only way we can keep an article like this clean and factual. By the way, the complaining editor here did not actually edit the article, but if the above is a sample of the kind of thing they would have added, I'd say that's a further justification for the need for protection. --MelanieN (talk) 21:38, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

This is the talk page, Cullen328, for one. Bias is allowed on the talk page, not in the article. And just because I didn't take the Democratic Party side of the argument does not mean that I was pushing any particular party's political point of view. I simply stated that the President, the Attorney General, and most likely millions of Americans and many Judges believe it was this Judge who violated the Constitution, not the Executive Order that violated the Constitution. The article gives the Judge's perspective, but not the President's. A neutral point of view does not mean no point of view, nor only one side's point of view, nor does it even mean that points of view that favor one side cannot be communicated in the article. To the contrary, the Neutral Point of View Policy requires that ALL relevant points of view that are supported by reliable sources must be included in the article, in proportion to the prevalence of that point of view. Like it or not, the official statements of the President, the Attorney General, and Legal Scholars who believe that "Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate" are reliable sources, as is Title 8, U.S. Code § 1182, paragraph f - Inadmissible aliens, which is the law that grants the President the power to restrict people from entering the country on the basis of their nationality or their membership of a certain class of people which the President deems to be a threat to the American People. According to recent polling, some polls show most Americans supporting the Executive Order, others show most Americans siding with the Judge. Therefore, both sides must be represented evenly. That is the opposite of political bias. That is political neutrality and a neutral point of view. Thanks for supporting my argument by suggesting that those who do not share your political perspective shouldn't even be using Wikipedia. But no thanks for making incorrect assumptions about my political views and intentions though.24.119.20.133 (talk) 21:45, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Let's not call it what I like. Let's call it what it is, MelanieN (talk. If it's not vandalism, then don't call it that, and certainly don't use that as a justification for taking the rather extreme measure of preventing many Wikipedia Users who neither committed vandalism, engaged in disruptive editing, nor violated of any other Wikipedia policy from contributing to and improving the article.

According to Wikipedia's WP:Vandal policy, Vandalism is a:

"malicious edit which attempts to reverse the main goal of the project of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, a compendium of diverse knowledge in many languages.

The wanton removal of encyclopedic content, or the changing of such content beyond all recognition, without any regard to our core content policies of neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view), verifiability and no original research, is a deliberate attempt to damage Wikipedia."

That is not what was occurring, and it was certainly not happening persistently by one or multiple users. If someone wasn't using a neutral point of view, then the right thing to do would be to revert their edit and maybe to block them if they really are persistently violating Wikipedia policies. However, two of those four references you gave were neither disruptive, nor biased, nor vandalism, just poorly worded by someone who is probably not familiar with Wikipedia policies. One of those edits simply claimed that the ruling was un-constitituional; that one word was the entirety of the edit. If the article states the Judges view that EO was unconstitutional, then the article should also state the view that Judge's ruling was unconstitutional, because that is view that is shared by many, many reliable sources, probably as many sources as those who feel that the EO was unconstitutional. It may be hard to tell in modern America, but the claim that the ruling was unconstitutional is a statement that is either factual or not, not a matter of opinion. Either the president really was violating the Establishment Clause by infringing on American Citizens' freedom of religion (which would require that EO itself explicitly infringes on US citizens' rights to travel on the basis of religion, or else it was the Judge who broke the law and issued a ruling based on a false premise. It's not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of Constitutional Law. The other edit stated that Judges in Hawaii are knowingly allowing illegal aliens in their state to remain in the state using fake identities to acquire drivers' licenses. Again, this is either true or it isn't. Now yes, in both these cases, the editors should have provided reliable sources, and they should have stated the views of these sources rather than their own, and the 20,000 illegal licenses argument is quite a stretch and not all that pertinent to travel restrictions EO, but the right thing to do in each of those cases would have been to revert the edit and inform the editor of the reason for the revert and how they should constructively contribute to the article by helping to ensure that ALL of the relevant points of view on the Executive Order are represented fairly and proportionately using reliable sources. The edit about the Judge being a good man should have been reverted, and the user who called a living person a nitwit on their biographical page should have warned and blocked if they persisted. Instead, you chose to make it more difficult for many, many casual Wikipedia users to contribute to the page. This was a sort of group punishment decision that was not appropriate in this case. It might have been the easier solution for you, but it was not the right thing to do for the Wikipedia community. 24.119.20.133 (talk) 22:29, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

For the record, MelanieN, I have contacted you directly and requested that you remove the protection for this page, in accordance with the relevant Wikipedia policy WP:RPP. If you are unwilling to remove the protection, I will proceed to file a request for the page protection to be removed through the appropriate channels.

Just to be clear though, are you or are you not willing to remove the page protection,MelanieN?24.119.20.133 (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2017 (UTC)


 * No, I am not willing to remove the semi-protection from this article. Feel free to file a request through channels. Appropriate locations to file a complaint might be WP:Administrator's noticeboard or WP:Administrator's noticeboard/Incidents. Just a tip: complaints at those venues are taken most seriously if they are brief and to the point; the people evaluating that board are not persuaded or impressed by a WP:Wall of text. Look over the page to get a feel for it before you post. --MelanieN (talk) 22:35, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Very well then. I do not now nor have I ever intended to persuade anyone by sheer volume of text, but rather by the validity and thoroughness of the argument, and by the negative and completely unnecessary impact this unwarranted use of page protection is having on Wikipedia users like me, the very users whom you are charged to serve as an administrator. You should have been persuaded by these arguments as well. It is better to admit when you are wrong than to stand by a bad ruling just because it was your ruling or your party's official position, especially when the public's interest is at stake. That timeless wisdom applies to both you and Judge Watson. 24.119.20.133 (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

As one of the users that reverted edits relating to Watson's restraining order, I agree with MelanieN's decision to enable protection. Most, if not all, of the edits have been value judgements instead of adding useful information to this page. Protecting this page saves a significant amount of editor time and is unlikely to prevent notable contributions to this article. Theoriginalandrewia (talk) 23:39, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Derrick Deshaun Watson
Could someone add a note at the top of the article saying "for the NFL quarterback, see Deshaun Watson (whose first name is Derrick) or something like that? I can't right now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JumperZ69666420 (talk • contribs) 17:51, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Added this; I also came to this page, expecting a clear distinguish since his birth name is Derrick Watson and some statistics say "Derrick Watson". --Engineerchange (talk) 07:58, 18 April 2022 (UTC)