Talk:List of Wikipedia controversies/Archive 2

A concrete suggestion
suggests the following above, which I am pulling out here with their permission for separate comment: As far as I can tell, Kohs's notability still stems from MyWikiBiz. I don't think this would have received even marginal attention if it had been some unknown IP editor who had been disinvited. The talk Kohs submitted and the accepted panel he took issue with were furthermore on the subject of paid editing. There doesn't seem to be a new Wikipedia controversy going on--just Wikimedia taking action against an already controversial figure. So couldn't the conference events just be added as a single sentence at the end of the 2006 MyWikiBiz paragraph? E.g. "In June 2014 Kohs was denied admittance to a Wikimedia-sponsored conference for which he had submitted a proposal to again engage the community on the subject of paid editing.(refs)"

Perhaps we can have a straw poll on the wisdom of this, as it may be a way out that many of us can live with. My feeling is that we should express our feelings on the general proposal and, if there's sufficient support, we can hash out the wording&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:27, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Support

 * 1) For reasons already explained ad nauseam.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:27, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Seems like a good compromise to me. 28bytes (talk) 02:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) [as indirect nom] --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  03:41, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) Not enough coverage to justify it as an entirely separate controversy, but this solution seems very reasonable since it involves the same clearly notable individual and probably the same issue.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:59, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) Oppose, The problem with this as it stands is it goes beyond what the NYM piece says. "Gregory Kohs was allegedly banned from attending WikiConference USA in June 2014." would be a fine sentence to add on to the end of that paragraph, but that's as far as we can go based on the only secondary source to have written about this so far. Since the article from that point contradicts primary sources, I feel we should leave it there. If there was a bunch of secondary RS coverage of the issue, I'd be more okay with getting in to more detail, juxtaposing primary sources in with the secondaries, etc, but given that it's gotten one line of coverage in one RS, I feel that expanding it much beyond what we can say from the single RS present would be undue weight (I have still feel that including it at all is undue weight.) Tangentially here is no reasonably reliable primary source that says that Kohs was in fact banned - he was, but I prefer sticking closely to what sources say. It's one of the weird situations we run in to when writing about Wikipedia - our content policies mean we can't say things we know are true - but I prefer to stick to our content policies. Before anyone accuses me of only holding that opinion because I'm not terribly fond of Kohs, it may be worth reviewing my previous editing of other articles related to Wikipedia. Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose, (Disclaimer: I made the original edit) While we could add this note to the previous controversy, this proposal doesn't model the controversy I added to the list at all. I think this proposal conflates a few issues. First, the controversy isn't about Greg's proposal being denied. No one promoted the event as open for everyone to propose at, and I'm sure everyone can agree that wasn't what this conference was about. If we believe that Greg's presentation being declined is a controversy, we need to discuss it separately and add it as a separate item to the list. This is about his being banned from the conference, which did promise to be open to all who want to participate. Second, the controversy isn't actually about Greg at all. It is about banning someone who didn't pose a threat to anyone from a conference that was billed as open. Now, if it is an issue that Greg in particular was banned from this conference, I suggest we create yet another item for the list addressing that. It's starting to sound like people believe the organizers' positions towards this particular participant were wrong on several fronts. Could we please stick to the controversy that I originally tried to add to this list in this thread, however? Or do we need still another informal RfC to decide that? ;) ,Wil — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wllm (talk • contribs) 03:02, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) oppose One sentence does not a controversy make. in any way, shape, or form. We need to do a serious trimming of this page, lest it becomes a repository of trivial edit wars and "ZOMG that editor was banninated??" Alf, why not just wait to see if WPOs efforts to generate more coverage around this are successful; if they're not, well, that's how the cookie crumbles. I don't think the outside world cares, and that's what matters here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:09, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) * Great! Something we can finally get some resolution on. Can we see the relative number of page views for this page versus the average number of page views for every page on en.Wiki? Thanks! ,Wil (talk) 05:46, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * - doing a comparison against every other page on ENWP wouldn't be easy, but you can see here that this page only gets about 2k page views a month. That's not very many, even with the recent spike.  In comparison, a prominent academic in feminist philosophy might receive 400, and an article about a species of magic mushroom indigenous to the pacific northwest might receive 3k views a month out of season.  Those are just random articles I've worked on through the years; we have articles that receive hundreds of thousands (or millions) of views a month.  Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:12, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) oppose per User:wllm. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:51, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose. A manufactured "controversy" that 1) Has nothing whatsoever to do with Wikipedia and 2) is sourced to a newsletter that has about as much credibility as a blog. The first O'Dwyer article inanely conflated Kohs as a member of the "media" and not his actual role as a self-styled critic who actually works in a corporate job in Pennsylvania someplace. The so-called "second source" is a regurgitation of the first source, with added inside-baseball references to this discussion. Coretheapple (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Threaded discussion
I believe this RfC is completely off-topic with regards to the original edit, which I made. ,Wil (talk) 03:23, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Note that the straw poll is explicitly about whether we should include the material in some form in the MyWikiBiz paragraph. If we can mostly agree that that's a reasonable place for it, we can, as I said, hash out the wording later. With this crew, it's evidently best to take baby steps so everybody can keep track of what's going on. And before you threaten me yet again, let me say that I include myself in those editors included in "this crew."&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:29, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I think my comment will be pretty clear in intent to any outside editor interpreting it, and don't intend to move it to support currently. And Alf: I've not threatened you once.  I've just pointed out that you've continued to violate/ignore policies at the same time that there's an active ANI section about your behavior Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:20, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

- The difference between my version and your version seems to come down to "Wikimedia-sponsored conference" and "for which he had submitted a proposal to again engage the community on the subject of paid editing." ...But neither of these are controversial statements that would need to be included in a secondary source. They just provide basic factual context that are visible publicly on the conference website. To me it's just better writing. If I cited a source at the Microsoft article which said "Microsoft is a corporation" and then wrote "Microsoft is a Washington-based corporation," drawing its uncontroversial location from its website, would that, too, be problematic? --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  03:41, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Unless I'm misremembering, I'm pretty sure the language in the straw poll has changed between the time I made my last comment and how it is now. Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:20, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Read the page history, Kevin. Nothing's changed except that I readded 28bytes's comment which was deleted inadvertently in an edit conflict with you.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:26, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I had assumed he put it back himself. Going to go delete it, per my conversation with him on his talk page.  Will take a look at the page history after. Given how many unnecessary sections this has and the fact that I'm getting a bit tired, it's perfectly possible I wrote something while looking at the wrong block of text. Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:33, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Threaded meta-discussion
This section is for discussing the discussion in the section above. Feel free to iterate as many times as needed.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:27, 10 June 2014 (UTC) Everyone, I don't have time to keep coming back here to "vote" on one informal RfC after another. I'm trying to build a better encyclopedia. My goal for this month was to hit the "very active contributors" threshold by doing 100 edits on the encyclopedia itself. Now, I'm just trying to keep up with these silly off-topic debates on this talk page. Could we please just settle this? Formal RfC, ArbCom, whatev's. I don't care. I just want to spend more of my time building a better encyclopedia than dealing with silly wikipolitics. I'll be perfectly frank here: I have better things to do both on-wiki and IRL. Should I now create an informal RfC to see if everyone agrees with me? Thanks. ,Wil (talk) 03:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Your actions and your descriptions of your actions disagree. Which should we believe?&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:45, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * My actions, of course. ,Wil (talk) 04:02, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Wil, sorry to say, but welcome to wikipedia. This is a run of the mill discussion, actually rather boring. Please stop mentioning arbcom, it has nothing to do with this - arbcom is for behavioral issues, not editorial disputes. If you want to do an RFC, you have to get people to agree on a neutral framing, and then add the RFC tag, and then (usually) wait for comments for 30 days, so an RFC is not the easy answer, and I REALLY don't want to do an RFC here, I hate to ask the community to weigh in on silly topics like this. It may be worth an RFC on "What is the inclusion criteria for this list", but people aren't engaging on that meta-topic sufficiently yet. These things can go on for pages, about a single semicolon. yes, it's true. If you're ready to throw in the towel, perhaps stick to content for a while and stay away from pages like this, as this is just a teaser compared to how these things can go for really controversial stuff, like what is jerusalem the capital of, or what is the name of the new star trek movie, or is yogurt actually spelled yoghurt? Wikipedians excel at tendentious argumentation, and Sayres law is force here "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake" - while I love to argue I'm still a padawan compared to some here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:09, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * See, that's exactly what I'm saying. Let's get this decided. I'm not throwing in the towel. I believe this controversy is controversial enough to include here. I just don't want anyone to waste my time- or anyone else's- coming to a final conclusion. In either case, I'm not going anywhere. ,Wil (talk) 05:29, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I lied. I up and left. It's pretty easy to find more productive things to do with my time. Best of luck with this pile of garbage I set fire to, everyone. :P ,Wil (talk) 19:41, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Sage advice, oh Jedi. Wil, for a very instructive lesson, read (and weep) about pizza cheese jihadists.  It's what we do here.  Compared to us, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in sweeping generalities.  And why not, for jots and tittles are the very essence of the law, are they not?  (I mean, there's that stuff about loving your neighbor as yourself that Hillel and Jesus were so hung up on, but that was probably just because semicolons hadn't been invented yet...)&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Alf, I followed you through the Pizza Cheese link, which was hilarious, but you totally went over my head after that. But I think I know enough to ask this: is tradition a good excuse for doing things in a somewhat time-consuming, completely off-putting way? Seriously, is Wikipedia so stuck in its ways that it can't adapt to changes happening all around and within it? Alf, you're a smart guy/gal/whatever; you undoubtedly know what happens to organizations that ask for change to stop for them. Change never stops for anyone, and they just get more irrelevant as time inexorably wears on. "Tradition" just isn't going to satisfy me as a reason to waste a ton of time talking about off-topic stuff. We can do better; and how bout we try in this very discussion. ,Wil (talk) 05:39, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * For an additional bit of background Wil, this isn't a typical Wikipedia discussion. Stuff like this tends to only happen surrounding topics that are totally explosive like race and intelligence, topics that have powerful outside interest groups pushing their agendas, or surrounding topics that gain a lot of attention from Wikipediocracy people and a certain subset of Wikipedians.  So, despite the painfulness this has been: be reassured that it's at least atypical. Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:00, 10 June 2014 (UTC)


 * what do you suggest specifically Wil to break the logjam? Both proposals are sitting squarely at no consensus for now.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:28, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

A new source
Although Kevin Gorman has suggested that I be blocked should I create any new sections on this talk page, I believe I will risk the wrath of the cabal for this important purpose. Here is a new source. Now, many of you think that O'Dwyer's is not an RS, but look! The NYT itself treats it as a reliable source. Can we do less? I will be proposing concrete language later today based on the fact that we now have multiple sources.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 18:38, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Alf, stop lying. Thanks. Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:23, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * &mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:38, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Read what I said in the diff you posted again. Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:44, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Still don't want to talk about content, do you?&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:45, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm quite happy to talk about how to make tihs an appropriate, high quality, encyclopedic list - you're the person a couple sections up who is for some reason refusing to discuss the scope of this list. However, until you correct your previous false (I'll extend AGF and take back the "deliberately false" bit for a moment at least) statement, you are correct that I will probably be asking you to stop making false and provocative statements about what I've said in this section, rather than talking much about content. Also, what Tarc said. Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It looks like a circle-jerk of O'Dwyer citing NY Mag's citing of O'Dwyer, tbh, so I really don't see how this advances the cause much. We need more than a sloppy PR insider blog and a casual not-even-a-name-drop mention in a magazine. Tarc (talk) 19:47, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Between the insistence that a rs citing a blog makes the blog an rs, the edit requests, and this logical fallacy, this is getting very tedious. We are at the point of it being disruptive. Dave Dial (talk) 20:08, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Not to mention, the new "source" in question is actually about this dispute, here on this page, NOT about any actual controversy around Koh's banning. It has become meta. Where is the law school? Where are the free speech activists? Where is the WMF's statement on the issue? Nowhere to be seen. The source in question doesn't spend any time on that, and addresses in no way why the banning itself was controversial. All we have is a report on what editors are doing on this particular page and whether THEY think it's controversial enough. This is all becoming very meta. I'm sure wikipediocracy is laughing their asses off. Now, if the NY times picks this up, and says "Huge edit war breaks out over whether to include content on this list", and then another RS follows up, we might actually get this discussion added as a controversy, but not the banning itself. What a waste of time.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:21, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * , I know you're sick of the whole thing, and please don't feel like you must respond, but I'd guess that your speculation about what's going to end up on the list are spot on. It doesn't seem at all unlikely that the edit-war here and ensuing discussion will end up getting an entry on the list.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * , first of all, "tedious" and "tendentious" are different things. If you're going to accuse me of tendentious editing, you should do so explicitly.  If I'm merely boring you, go somewhere else.  Also, if you have a problem with my edit requests, why don't you say what it is in some more appropriate venue, like ANI?  My edit requests were perfectly proper.  Now, on to your content-related points.  First of all, it's accepted sourcing practice in Wikipedia and even in the scholarly world that a secondary source citing a fact to an unreliable source makes the information (not the source) reliable.  Read WP:RS about how we use reliable secondary sources to evaluate the claims in unreliable primary sources if you don't believe me. Finally, you characterize O'Dwyer's as a blog, although it is not.  You also don't note that even blogs can be reliable sources, and you fail to provide any reason why this isn't that kind of blog (even though it's not one).  Now, why don't you drop your insinuations about my editing being tedious/tendentious and explain clearly how O'Dwyer's is not a reliable source.  Protip: Read the NYT article I linked to above, which shows that the NYT considers it a reliable source.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:31, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Statistical measurements of meta ray radiation are showing upward trends according to a survey of past analyses. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  20:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * As an aside, and, you're two of the most productive contributors to this discussion, but is there any of this parallel arguing (which ultimately doesn't push the subject at hand forward) that could be forked to usertalk or some other venue? I don't mean to stick my nose in, but the atmosphere and addition to an already formidable wall of text may, I would venture, discourage participation. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites  talk  |  20:32, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Rhodo: sadly, I agree with you that much of the dialogue between me and Alf discourages outside participation. Unfortunately, until Alf backs off, I'm not sure how much of it can be forked elsewhere (unless I want to start another ANI thread requesting action against Alf, which I'm still hoping not to have to do.) Alf had at one point started 26 of the 32 sections on the page at the time (I'm too lazy to recount now,) has started multiple sections (including this one) by either personally attacking participants in the discussion or by lying about stuff they've said, and has started multiple hilariously misguided faux RfCs. I think that Obi's section a couple up has the potential to resolve both this point and further points in this future, and would encourage as many people as willing to participate there. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:47, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * People who have to fill space with opinion pieces are excited by anything. However, the lead of the article shows that the topic is Wikipedia, as in the encyclopedic content and the governance of that content. Come back in three months and see how much of a "controversy" exists about the exclusion of a particular person from a wikiconference. Johnuniq (talk) 03:45, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * All the defensive comments here really aren't helping very much. O'Dwyer is used as a source quite extensively in Wikipedia.  It appears to be considered a RS by WP's administration, since they haven't done anything to try to remove it or have not attempted to blacklist the url. Cla68 (talk) 07:13, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * There are three separate issues at play here. First, is the new O'Dwyer's article a reliable source for anything?  Second, if so, does it tend to lend weight to this controversy regarding inclusion on the list?  Third, if it is an RS, for what factual information is it an RS?  I think a number of comments above conflate these issues.  I was merely asking about the first so that we can move on to discussing the others.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd say no, not really a reliable source for anything. It's a self-published blog for all intents and purposes. If this newsletter is used elsewhere in Wikipedia, then that simply proves that there's bad stuff in Wikipedia. Surprise surprise. Coretheapple (talk) 14:49, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The references to Kevin Gorman puzzled me, so I went back and noticed that Gorman was pretty strong in criticizing the reliability of the first O'Dwyer article, pointing out some embarrassing errors. O'Dwyer took umbrage at that, and hence the article, replete with a photo of Gorman. Pure retribution, no news value at all, and just diminishes further the reliability of the O'Dwyer newsletter as a Wikipedia source. Coretheapple (talk) 14:54, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Note that J. R. O'Dwyer Company publishes a number of print magazines. Note that these magazines are taken very seriously by sources universally agreed to be reliable.  Not only the NYT article I linked to above but e.g. Mondo Times.  Articles from O'Dwyer's magazines are cited in scholarly journals, see this google scholar search. Articles from his magazines are cited in scholarly books, e.g.,  (which also cites his news blog, interestingly), , , and so on. It's pretty clear that his print journals are considered reliable by a wide variety of themselves-reliable sources.  How then does this source not satisfy WP:NEWSBLOG?  It seems to be the platonic ideal of one.  This is only in response to your unsupported claim that O'Dwyer's blog is "not really a reliable source for anything."  Is it possible that you could back up that opinion with reference to some actual policies or guidelines, preferably explaining how it's not a reliable NEWSBLOG in the process?&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:16, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I can only "back that up" by observing that the article that they wrote on this was rife with errors, and that they followed up (or more precisely "he" followed up) with a hit piece on Gorman. "Platonic ideal" my fanny. Coretheapple (talk) 15:29, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * So your argument is basically that your personal knowledge of the subject of a single article from a source not only trumps the WP guideline on RS but that your personal opinion of the accuracy of a single article discredits all material from the source, even in the face of solid evidence that the source meets the WP guideline on RS? And this position is so obvious to you that you don't feel any need to discuss my actual substantive argument that O'Dwyer's satisfies WP:NEWSBLOG? I'm not arguing with you at this point, I just want to be sure I understand your position.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:42, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * My "position" is that I am believing what I see with my two eyes. Coretheapple (talk) 15:47, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * So basically your OR trumps both guideline and policy, then? Thanks for clarifying.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:08, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Whatever. I'm just suggesting that we read a source before using it. This is simply O'Dwyer's blog. It's possible that he runs an empire of publications but what he has written on this subject is pure crap, filled with inaccuracies, obviously not even rudimentary fact-checking. Should we check on the reliability of his publications, are they as bad as what he produces on his blog? Good rhetorical question, Core! Maybe we should. But as I said, our own two eyes tell us that this is not a reliable source. There is nothing in WP:V that requires editors to be deaf, dumb and blind and to act like automatons. Coretheapple (talk) 16:11, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * But admittedly I haven't responded directly to your point. Does WP:NEWSBLOG apply? No it does not. This is not a blog in a news organization. It is the personal blog of some guy who runs a PR newsletter. As we can see from what he has written on this manufactured controversy, he writes utter rubbish, no fact-checking, no accuracy. So no, not applicable. Coretheapple (talk) 16:15, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * It's not simply his blog; as I noted above, this blog is written by a universally acknowledged expert in his field and also cited in scholarly works. It seems to me that it satisfies WP:NEWSBLOG due to the clause there stating "Several newspapers, magazines, and other news organizations host columns on their web sites that they call blogs. These may be acceptable sources if the writers are professionals, but use them with caution because the blog may not be subject to the news organization's normal fact-checking process." Magazine?  Check.  Called a blog?  Check.  Writer is a professional?  Check.  Caution?  That's what we're doing now. However, you're right about us not being required to act like automatons (although, tangentially, some seem to enjoy doing so). Recall that this talk-page section is about this article, rather than the first O'Dwyer article. As far as I can see, you're the first editor here to suggest that there are errors in it. Would you mind pointing out some of them? It seems perfectly accurate to me.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:20, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Well no, I was referring to his first piece as filled with inaccuracies. The second piece was a hit job on Gorman in retaliation for him taking the lead on this page and pointing out those inaccuracies. I wasn't really focusing on the accuracy of the article, but I notice that his second article was inaccurate in that it claims that Gorman did not point out the inaccuracies in his first article, when he did. He pointed out that there were numerous repeated misspellings, which was entirely relevant to our discussion as it indicates that O'Dwyer does not engage in elementary fact checking. O'Dwyer took this as a personal affront. This confirms that O'Dwyer produces a blog; it is not a "news organization" with the customary editorial controls. The policy you site is not applicable to small newsletters whose proprietors spout whatever crap they want, don't correct inaccuracies, don't even acknowledge inaccuracies, and attack people who are critical of them. Glad you raised this issue and are making such a fuss about it. I think that O'Dwyer's publications need to be thoroughly examined, for if this is an example of their reliability, if the rubbish its publisher has produced is any example, they don't belong anywhere on Wikipedia. Coretheapple (talk) 16:32, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * So your claim is that typographical errors are on a par with factual errors? Which makes it a factual error in the second piece to say that Gorman didn't point out factual errors in the first piece when he did the functional equivalent by pointing out typographical errors?  Is this a general principle, do you think?  A source with misspellings is prima facie unreliable?  Also, do you have evidence for your characterization of O'Dwyer's as a "small newsletter" and all the other stuff you said?  It seems to me that it's quite a weighty publication in its field, given the number of citations of it in scholarly articles and monographs, an issue which you still haven't addressed.  Are not number and quality of citations standard ways to judge the quality of sources, rather than our own feelings about whether they should hire better copy-editors?  Finally and, I guess tangentially, I wonder why you see the instant article as a "hit piece," and why you think that's relevant to the first issue regarding reliability?  Suppose arguendo that it is a "hit piece."  That would seem to me to lend some weight to the second reliability issue, that is, that its existence weighs on the side of our dealing with a genuine controversy here.  After all, the existence of "hit pieces" is to smoke as controversy is to fire, ce vrai?&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:56, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * No, instead let's assume arguendo that I'm weary of arguendo-ing the same subject over and over again about a manufactured controversy and rubbish source with an editor who is arguing the same thing over and over and over again. Coretheapple (talk) 17:16, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not sure I would call it a hit piece, Core. If it is, it is definitely about the most weaksauce hitpiece ever written. That said, Jack emailed me about it before he published it, it has Jack's name as a byline, and is published in a source he owns. I seriously doubt it underwent the type of editorial oversight that we look for in reliable sources. Written by Jack and printed in a publication he owns, it's a WP:SPS, and since it's pretty much entirely about living people, WP:BLPSPS applies to pretty much all of it, and it's not a usable source for anything interesting. The BLPSPS exemption for news blogs requires the piece to still be subject to meaningful editorial oversight, and I seriously doubt an O'Dwyer article written by Jack O'Dwyer is :) Kevin Gorman (talk) 17:55, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Well you'll certainly get no arguendo from me on any of your points. I like that word. Coretheapple (talk) 21:09, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * So glad you learned something! Note that it's an adverb, rather than a noun, though.  Carry on.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:48, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Halavais I
I just changed this: Alexander Halavais, then assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo, decided to test claims regarding the speed at which errors in Wikipedia were corrected by deliberately introducing thirteen errors into Wikipedia articles. to this: Alexander Halavais, then assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo, decided to test claims regarding the speed at which errors in Wikipedia were corrected. Halavais deliberately introduced thirteen errors into Wikipedia articles as a breaching experiment. Note that the object of the original sentence was the noun phrase "claims regarding the speed at which errors in Wikipedia were corrected by deliberately introducing thirteen errors into Wikipedia articles." Since, as far as I know, errors in Wikipedia are not, in fact, corrected by deliberately introducing any number of errors, let alone thirteen in particular, the original sentence was false. Perhaps others disagree that this was a breaching experiment. That's the main reason I'm starting this section, so that, if they do, they have a place to do it. Cheers!&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:46, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Halavais II
I changed this: the other errors he introduced were discovered by checking the contributions of his account to this: the other errors he introduced were discovered by checking his contribution log because (a) it's more direct and (b) "contributions of his account" is inside-baseball-language. Perhaps others disagree with my assessment, so I'm noting it here to facilitate discussion.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:52, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

A little more detail on Siegenthaler
I added this to the Siegenthaler section, as it's an unmentioned important aspect of the incident: Additionally, the article erroneously stated that Siegenthaler had lived in the Soviet Union for thirteen years beginning in 1971. Perhaps others gauge the importance differently than I do, so I am opening this section here to discuss issues as they arise.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:57, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

A clarifying edit on Siegenthaler
I removed this introductory adjective phrase from a sentence in the Siegenthaler section: Then 78-year-old. First of all, and punctuation mavens, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe it should have been "Then-78-year-old to make it clear that the "then" was functioning as part of the adjective rather than as a conjunction, which is how it struck me the first seven or eight times I read it. Perhaps others would prefer to introduce the hyphen rather than delete the whole phrase?  Also, I don't really see what Siegenthaler's age at the time has to do with it.  I believe it was placed in the Siegenthaler incident article (from which this text was copied by someone I'm too lazy to track down) because Siegenthaler mentions it for specific reasons in the source this is cited to.  However, the mention here is decontextualized and therefore, I think, nonsensical.  Perhaps others disagree and would like to mention Siegenthaler's age at the time.  Thus this TP section.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:12, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

2006 Batuta hoax pronoun replaced with its referent
That's what I did in this edit. The previous version of the sentence struck me as unclear. Perhaps one or more of my colleagues disagree. Let us reason together!&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:49, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

2006 Batuta hoax sentence tightening redux
I changed this: "The Batuta hoax was perpetrated by a group of Polish Wikipedia editors called the Batuta Army" to this: "The hoax article was written by a group of Polish Wikipedia editors calling themselves the Batuta Army." Rationale: As always, your thoughts are welcome!&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:55, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) The word "Batuta" was already used enough in this region of the section.
 * 2) It's both less awkward and more direct to say that the article was written rather than that the hoax was perpetrated.
 * 3) It's unclear that anyone other than themselves uses the name "the Batuta Army," so I thought it better that the sentence reflect this.

Use-mention distinction in 2006 Batuta hoax material
I put double quotes around the phrase "Batuta Army" in order to clarify the fact that the term is being mentioned rather than used. This is a traditional use for double quotation marks. Sometimes single quotation marks are used. I have no opinion on the choice of kinds of quote marks. Even italics are sometimes used according to our article on the subject (Use–mention distinction). I've noticed that many WP editors have very strong opinions on matters that others don't care about so strongly, e.g. short, medium, and long dashes and so forth, so I thought I'd start this section in case anyone feels that I am dismissing their strong feelings about this, to me, trivial matter. I am not. I have my own picayune obsessions and I try to respect those of others.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:59, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

2006 Batuta hoax sentence tightening
I replaced this: "Batuta was claimed to be a Polish Communist revolutionary who was an associate of Ernest Hemingway" to this: "Batuta was a notional Polish Communist revolutionary and associate of Ernest Hemingway." First of all, "claimed to be" gets a big red AWK. scribbled on the side of the paper, even in middle school. Secondly, the rest of it has too many words that don't need to be there. I am putting this section here in case anyone has thoughts on the matter, wants to make fun of me for using a slightly offbeat word like "notional," or to use it for any other purpose.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:46, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not an improvement. There's nothing particularly awkward about "was claimed to be". I suppose you could replace "claimed" with "alleged" or "asserted" but I also don't see those as any better.


 * "Batuta was a notional Polish Communist revolutionary" sort of implies that he claimed to be Polish Communist revolutionary but wasn't. But he didn't claim any such thing; he didn't exist, which is the crux of the issue with Mr Batutua. This is one possible reading of "Batuta was a notional Polish Communist revolutionary". Another reading is the correct one, that other people (not Mr Batuta) claimed he was a Polish Communist revolutionary. However, there's no reason to replace fairly clear language with language that can be interpreted two ways if there's no good reason for doing so. An while I'm not going to make fun of you for using "notional", it is a somewhat difficult and uncommon word, so I wouldn't introduce it. You could possibly use "imaginary" instead, but there's a vibe there that perhaps the hoax perpetrators believed, delusionally, that he existed; you could use "fictional" but the vibe there is that perhaps the person is a character in actual literary works. (Obviously reading further into the passage quickly clears all this up, but a goal is to minimize how often readers have to go "Oh, now I get it" as they read our material.) So I think how it was was stated was probably OK. You could replace "claimed" with "alleged" or "asserted" but I also don't see those as any better. Herostratus (talk) 00:54, 19 June 2014 (UTC)


 * How about "Batuta, an entirely made-up person, was claimed to be a Polish Communist revolutionary who was an associate of Ernest Hemingway". While this introduces more words, it also makes the situation clear at once, I think. I think that "made-up", while slightly informal, clarifies the situation better than would "imaginary" or "fictional" for the reasons stated above. "Fake" might be better. Herostratus (talk) 00:58, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Informal RfC on the Gregory Kohs material
I propose that we have an informal RfC on whether material on the exclusion of Gregory Kohs from the 2014 WikiConference USA be included in this article. I'm purposely not proposing language because I think it'd be best to reach consensus on whether the material should be included before we negotiate exactly what information should be included. I'd prefer at this point not to have a formal RfC because it's fairly unwieldy, but, of course, if anyone wants to start one, they're free to do so. Please give your opinion in the appropriate section with reasoning. For clarity (just look what happened to the section above) perhaps we can consider confining threaded discussion to the so-designated section.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:13, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Support including some material on exclusion of Kohs at this point

 * 1) Support As I said above, the NYMag source uses the "alleged" exclusion of Kohs as a paradigmatic example of cliquish shenanigans at WMF-sponsored events. That says to me that it's "a canonical example of some facet of X" as WP:LSC tells us is a reasonable criterion for including an item on a list.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:13, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Support. Wow, is this not a textbook instance of the Streisand effect?  More: the fuss around including this snippet of information underlines how this issue hits a nerve. There's a lot going on here. I would accept Kevin Gorman's points except that, even without the evidence that this talk page provides, this controversy seems to me more significant than many that are already included in the list, not least the strangely opaque entry on Ryan Kaldari that almost immediately precedes it. FWIW, I have no great love for Kohs, but think that banning him was a mistake, that refusing to provide reasons for the ban only compounds that mistake, and that those fighting against its inclusion here are further making that compounded mistake worse. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:24, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) Support. The fact that Wikipedians have edit-warred to censor mention of this incident in Wikipedia, forcing full-protection of this page, is proof enough that this was a controversial incident.  Also, per Alf's reasoning. Cla68 (talk) 06:16, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) Support. (edit for full disclosure: I am the guy that originally added the item to the list, although I had no involvement in the ensuing edit war.) But what exactly am I supporting? What do y'all mean by "some material"? Is this the "informal" part of the informal RfC process? :D ,Wil (talk) 06:43, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) Support, seems appropriate for inclusion. Everyking (talk) 09:17, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) Support: echoing jbmurray's comments above.  Fylbecatulous   talk  11:36, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) Support - It was controversial and it was covered in a media source, ergo it reasonably meets criteria for inclusion. Carrite (talk) 05:10, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) Support – Kohs' notability was already established in 2006. Does anyone deny that this incident happened? If not, then "reliable source" arguments seem like undue disparagement of the source. As this list already goes into incredible detail, what's the big deal about adding one more? Just put in a short blub similar to if not identical to what's been reverted, and move on and get back to work. This has turned into a big distraction. Wbm1058 (talk) 13:23, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Neutral or ambivalent

 * 1) Ambivalent/Wait - There are enough troutings deserved here to open a fish market and a few whalings to open one in Wakayama, Japan . An argument about braces FFS?  Anyway, the sources aren't that great... the NYMag piece is full of editorialization of light on details of the actual controversy.  But I do have concerns that this is being swept under the rug.  This even happened just a few days ago I gather.  Why not wait a few days and see if any better sources pick up the story once the workweek starts.  If no one else touches it then don't include it.  If more sources run it, then add it.  EvergreenFir (talk) 18:27, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Please propose specific language.  Could go either way depending on how it is worded and what sources there are.  Jehochman Talk 16:24, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Oppose including any material on exclusion of Kohs at this point

 * 1) Oppose per the fact that the source cited is not a reliable source and there is only one instance of this being mentioned, not multiple reliable sources. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:26, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose Not a Wikipedia controversy, but a WikiConference USA issue. Only a single passing mention in one reliable source - not enough to qualify this as a controversy anyway. - Bilby (talk) 06:24, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) oppose seriously we need to get some perspective. Almost daily there are articles somewhere in the media about some edit war on some Wikipedia article. For example, there are two articles about yesallwomen right now, and the fact that there is some edit warring. Who cares?? We don't add such issues here. Even if reliable sources exist, that doesn't raise this to a notable controversy, which is what this list is for (see last line of lede) And this incident, where a minor wiki personality was uninvited from a minor wiki conference, and was mentioned in literally one line in a broader article, is so minor in the scale of things to be laughable. Has it had any impact, in the way the women novelists fiasco did? Is the ACLU weighing in yet? Are famous writers tweeting about the injustice? Did it lead to broad scale changes at Wikipedia that reliable sources wrote about? A controversy - for the purposes of this list - is something that generates extended coverage over a significant period of time with multiple angles. It's not a controversy - for the purposes of this list - if the only people talking about it in detail are wikipedians and Wikipediocracy denizens; if that is all that is required, this list would grow enormously. This list should be reserved for things which non-wikipedians found out about, studied, and wrote about. This is a peccadillo, a small slight to a person who was banned from Wikipedia and was now banned from one of its chapter meetings. It's a non-event, even charitably. Alf is trying to make the point that this is some sort of 'first they came for the xxx' type of moment, and if we don't speak up now and trumpet this far and wide soon editors in good standing will be secretly excluded by a cabal of vicious insiders. Nothing could be further from the truth. Finally, the points made above about the number of inaccuracies in the nymag piece make it not a reliable source, in any case. The very line in question, the 'reliable sentence' if we can call it that, is WRONG, since apparently Kohs wasn't even scheduled to speak. So why would we even use such an article where the journalist was rather sloppy? We need to wait to see if this gets more coverage and covers the event in detail.-Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:49, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose...notability has not been established.--MONGO 14:07, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) Oppose. Sorry alf et al., but I also don't get "controversy" out of one article. Drmies (talk) 00:21, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose. Unfortunately I've been without internet for a couple days and unable to comment, but I don't see how in the hell a single sentence in a reliable source talking offhandedly about an alleged controversy is worthy of inclusion in a list of this scope (the last line of the lede of the article currently reading "This list is a collection of the more notable instances.")  This isn't a more notable instance of a Wikipedia controversy, or it would've attracted more RS coverage.  There's really little reason why this should even be an argument.  I'd also point that this is not a well constructed RfC. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:03, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) No further time and effort should at present be spent on this feigned and manufactured controversy. It appears that this article and its talkpage are being used to emphasize a few editors' strong personal disagreement with the Wikiconference's decision to disinvite Mr. Kohs, which is not the proper purpose of mainspace. I also agree that the overly complex nature of the RfC is unhelpful. (COI note: As a board member of the New York Chapter, I am the person who communicated the decision to Mr. Kohs, and I have greater knowledge of the relevant background than most others who have edited this page.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:33, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) Oppose This article primarily concerns controversies concerning encyclopedic content and the governance of that content. A wikiconference can exclude whoever it wants and that is only a big deal to those who want to make it a big deal. Johnuniq (talk) 03:53, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 9) Oppose per User:Bilby, User:Kevin Gorman, and User:Newyorkbrad. JoeSperrazza (talk) 19:05, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 10) Oppose. How did I miss this? Maybe it's that this talk page is longer than the Jerusalem Talmud. Doesn't belong because it's not a Wikipedia controversy. Coretheapple (talk) 15:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Threaded discussion
Well obviously it's going to hard to sort all this out, since it's an article on the Wikipedia that is about the Wikipedia so almost by definition most every editor is going to have an emotional stake in the issue (whether they admit it or not, even to themselves), so rather than most of the involved editors thrashing out the various aspects of the situation in a collegial fashion, as we might get with (say) List of controversies involving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we're at best going to get editors who are pretending for tactical reasons to thrash out the various aspects of the situation in a collegial fashion while actually marshaling their arguments in defense of a position that they're not actually going to examine. More the courtroom than the editorial workroom I'd say.

Right? Yeah probably. This is why articles about the Wikipedia are hard and wasteful of time and energy. Probably we should outsource them to a neutral third party. We can't do that, so I'm not sure what the answer is.

One way is to look at how we treat similar entities or handle similar articles. Category:Lists of controversies only has one similar article, List of controversies involving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. (This alone makes me wonder why this article exists, since we don't have List of controversies involving Google or List of controversies involving Exxon-Mobile and so forth, although most large companies have Criticism sections, but they're usually not all that long.) It's not clear to me what Wikipedia and the Mounties have in common that these two entities and only these two ought have special lists of their controversies. But whatever, maybe I'm missing something.

So, looking at some broadly similar type articles:
 * List of controversies involving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, since that's the one article that in title seem to parallel this one.
 * Encyclopædia Britannica, since that's also an encyclopedia.
 * Criticism of Facebook, since that's also a popular website.
 * Twitter, since that's also a popular website.
 * Baidu, since that's also a popular website. There's no Criticism section exactly, but there are sections titled "Baidu workers arrested" and "Censorship".
 * Yadda yadda. I picked the above at random and you could doubtless pick many more.

The question is, if this situation came up for these articles -- if there was a broadly similar situation involving the Mounted Police, for instance, such that some individual that had a Greg-Kohs-like relationship to the Mounties, and the Mounties had a conference and he wasn't invited (or Britannica, or Facebook, or whomever), and we had the refs we have here, and the incident had achieved the general level of notability that this one has, would we want to include it in those articles? I'm asking. Herostratus (talk) 07:40, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Just to comment, as I'm still catching up on all of this - for the comparison to work, the situation would be that a group managing the Canadian Mounties were one of the sponsors of a conference about Canadian Mounties run by a semi-independent group. At the conference a person was asked not to attend, and this was then mentioned in a single line in a questionably researched article. In which case, no, I would argue against including it in the Canadian Mounties article. :) If this was the result of a direct action of the WMF I'd feel differently, or if it was covered in some depth in multiple reliable sources I'd be more willing to include it, but at the moment it hasn't achieved the level of notability that would warrant a mention. - Bilby (talk) 08:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment. I think this is a situation where we should have a formal RfC. When we have such an article as «Wikipedia controversies» it’s important that the editing of the article is mainly handled by editors who are not involved in the underlying disputes, to avoid that this article becomes part of the disputes itself.
 * Editors who in some way or other have involved themselves in the latest incident should note so in their «voting» and other comments; so that this can be taken into account. We should try to get uninvolved editors to comment in the RfC by posting notices on Wikiproject talk pages, like Wikiproject Education, Wikiproject Internet, Wikiproject USA etc. Iselilja (talk) 07:58, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I would probably qualify as one of those editors who has gotten involved ;), but I think this is a sound proposal for moving ahead. ,Wil (talk) 08:23, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm not opposed to a formal RfC. Two reasons I chose to start with an informal RfC: First, it was late and I wanted to get discussion restarted sooner rather than later, but was too groggy to frame a properly neutral RfC question.  Second, I think this discussion really must be had in stages.  First we decide if the Kohs material should go in, second we negotiate what the material should be.  If we did formal RfCs we're looking at 60 days worth of comment at a minimum.  On the other hand, I have no objection to a formal RfC if you'd like to either modify this one or start a new one.  Certainly, though, feel free to publicize at wikiprojects.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:23, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

, could you explain how New York Magazine is not a reliable source per WP:RS?&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:26, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The citing of an unreliable source does not make it suddenly reliable. We had a Friendly space policy and that was invoked at the conference, which is not illegal for an organization to do, as it is their own private event. As MONGO said below, I don't have anything against you or Kohs, but I also don't find anything controversial in this whole event since it seems like people are just trying to manufacture a controversy out of something that was invoked to help make people feel more comfortable. Also, this should probably be turned into a formal RFC so that the community knows about it and can comment here, instead of just the select few that know that this page exists. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 15:46, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with Kevin. We need to let the community decide whether this is controversial or not. And we need to provide them the information they need to make a fair decision. We can start with links to all of the sources which we currently know are available; there are only a few, so this shouldn't be an unwieldy list. Just like they don't know this page exists, they may not be aware of how WikiConference USA was organized or the long history of controversy in the Wikipedia project that Mr. Kohs has been involved in. And of course, we'll need to provide them a link to the page itself. Finally, we'll need to provide a link to this talk page.

Since we're all Wikipedians here, I don't think that any of us would deny that knowledge is power. Let's empower the whole community. ,Wil (talk) 16:09, 8 June 2014 (UTC) , could you explain what notability has to do with the inclusion of an item on a list? WP:LISTN explicitly says that it's OK to have lists where the individual entries are not notable as long as the topic of the list itself is notable.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:22, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Are you in the employ of Kohs, or acting as his meatpuppet? To be frank it surely looks like at least the latter is an accurate assessment.--MONGO 14:47, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Are you unable to conceive of the possibility that someone might disagree with you or question you without having ulterior motives or to respond to such disagreement without making off-the-wall unsupported accusations? To be frank it surely looks like at least the latter is an accurate assessment.  Now, even though you don't deserve it, since you choose to accuse rather than discuss, I will explain why this issue is important to me.  I and many other editors support Wikipedia through our hard work.  We make it one of the top ten websites in the world.  The WMF rides on that to collect money, which it uses not just to provide servers and software, but to form and encourage partnerships with respectable academic institutions (whatever GLAM stands for, those places).  Once such activity is these conferences that they organize, held on university campuses, provided with scholarly speakers and financial support for attendees and so on.  This is all good, but then they ban Kohs, who, by the way, I don't know personally, with whom I disagree on just about every position I've ever heard him express, and whose writing, both stylistically and with regard to content, bores me to tears, for some ridiculous made-up ex post facto reason which they won't explain.  This kind of behavior is contrary to every established norm of respectable academia and takes all the hard work that you, I, and other serious editors here provide to the WMF as a groundwork for their efforts to become respectable, and squanders it just so some feral cliquish teenagers and their enablers can nail a handpainted "NO KOHS ALLOWED" sign to their treehouse.  It's insulting and it's self-defeating on the part of the WMF.  Do you see why it might matter to me regardless of my opinion of Kohs?  Furthermore, once people start getting banned for secret reasons without due process and with no explanation required, it could happen to anyone.  Even you or me, MONGO.  I don't want to go to conferences where the organizers behave like this because it's scary.  I don't want anyone to have to worry about whether it's going to happen to them.  I don't expect anyone at the WMF to bend to my will on the basis of the work I put into editing, but I do expect to be able to express myself about issues that affect Wikipedia and the WMF on the basis of it.  As should you.  As should all of us.  That's more of an explanation than you deserve given your scattershot accusations, but there you have it.  None of that has anything to do with why I think the material at hand should be included in the article, naturally.  It's merely a response to your silly questions about my motive.  Now, as neither your accusations nor my response have to do with the content of this article, which is what we're meant to be discussing here, perhaps you could answer my original question: what does notability have to do with the inclusion or exclusion of a list item, especially since it's long-established practice and explicitly encouraged by guidelines to make lists of things which, although notable as a group, are not individually notable.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * P.s. I'm glad you felt free to start a separate section with a title more acceptable, but surely you're aware that "adding any material" and "adding some material" are logically equivalent, given that they describe identical sets of outcomes. One's against adding any material if and only if one's against adding some material.  Nevertheless not my will but thine be done, oh MONGO.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:22, 8 June 2014 (UTC


 * I have no beef with you, Kohs or anyone else, but I simply don't see anything controversial about Kohs being banned from the site or his being disinvited from a wikimeetup to be either notable or controversial.--MONGO 15:33, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I have none with you either.  On the content issue, we disagree.  This is normal.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:38, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, MONGO. Please forgive my ignorance; I'm new at this. What has alf laylah wa laylah said that you believe indicates that he might employed by Greg Kohs or be his meatpuppet? It sounds like these are pretty serious allegations, but, if they can be proven, would be relevant well beyond the issue at hand. Where do you think the most appropriate place to pursue this matter would be? Please create it and provide a link, if possible. In the interests of settling this matter, however, I think it would be best to use this space for its intended purpose: deciding as a community whether Greg Kohs' being banned from WikiConference USA is or is not controversial. Thanks! ,Wil (talk) 15:52, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * A formal RFC might decide whether Kohs being disinvited from the party is notable. Kohs was disinvited from a wiki-party....cry me a river....as Hildegard Clinton might say....at this point what difference does it make???? Waaaahhhh.--MONGO 21:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, good question, MONGO. It makes a difference to me because these Wikipedia conferences apparently happen quite frequently. Like a lot of people here, I don't agree with a lot of what Greg Kohs says or does. But, also like a lot of people here, I don't want to see anyone excluded from any conference if they don't provide a real threat to anyone. And even under those circumstances, I would expect some form of explanation. I, for one, don't want to see this happen again. I've already made it clear that I will not be attending any Wikipedia event that is not actually "open," as claimed in the WikiConference 2014 promotional literature. ,Wil (talk) 22:42, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * If it didn't make a difference, why are Wikipedians edit warring to keep this incident off of this page? In my experience, when an organization tries to cover something up, it means that they are admitting that they did something underhanded or hypocritical. Cla68 (talk) 23:46, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm sure wikipedians and the admin cabal get up to all sorts of underhanded or hypocritical bullshit - every organization does, and every individual eventually does. I can point to blatant hypocrisy on the part of Jimbo Wales and on the part of his most strident critics. And yes, I think some wikipedians are trying to remove this instance because it relates to a bête noir and they'd rather not give him more oxygen or sunlight. But no matter what we suspect, that's not really relevant to the list itself, which is for notable controversies involving Wikipedia. This one simply is not notable enough, and if there were a great many more sources that discussed the banning, the impact of the banning, reactions from free speech groups, with the law school making public statements and distancing themselves from it all, etc, then you'd have something. For now you have a tempest in a teapot that for some reason some ppl are trying to turn into a cause célèbre.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:58, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Obi-Wan Kenobi. While I still don't agree with you, I wanted to take the time to thank you for the best summary of a side of the issue that I don't happen to support. If anything were to convince me to support the removal of this controversy from the list, it would be your comment. Please continue to help us in this discussion; you seem to have a very steady hand, and that's exactly what we need right now. ,Wil (talk) 00:54, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

(Moved to correct section) Isn't this essentially voting on whether we're going to keep arguing or not? Cause if we're disagreeing this strongly about whether the content should be on here in the first place, I can't see negotiating on what information should be included turning in to anything other than a 10ish-way split of the original argument that will all be just as lively. ,Wil (talk) 06:51, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * You might be surprised at how well the RfC process can work despite quite strong disagreements. See here for the most impressive example I know: Requests for comment/Jerusalem.  The level of disagreement here is trivial compared to the level surrounding that topic, and yet the process was successful beyond all reasonable expectation.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:41, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

, I am not trying to make a "first they came for" argument in favor of inclusion of the material, as I stated explicitly above. The comment to which you refer was in response to MONGO's assertion that he could see no reason for my stance other than me meatpuppeting for Greg Kohs. Without that accusation I wouldn't have found it necessary to explain why I think this issue is important in itself. The only arguments I've made for inclusion of the material are based on policy, guidelines, and the general type of item that has hitherto been included on this list without much fuss at all. That you disagree with me, not for the first time, is no reason to impugn my arguments by completely misconstruing them.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:09, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Alf, your impassioned reply to Mongo suggests that the reason you are so stridently arguing for inclusion of this event, whereas hundreds of other peccadillos with even better sourcing are unnoticed by you and won't be edit-warred in here by you - is not simply policy ( which is, I insist, currently supported by the flimsiest of sources.) Can you imagine if every time a single reliable source mentioned a single 'controversial' thing in Wikipedia - in one sentence half of which was untrue!! - we added a line about it here? It would be endless! In the past 30 days there have likely been hundreds of reliable sources that discussed something of note, and even perhaps controversial, that happened in wiki-space, but we don't go around adding all of them - I think we really need sustained and detailed coverage from multiple sources - the list is for the really notable wiki controversies, not every single one. Even the source in question mentions a Wikipedia editor's clumsy interaction with a woman - should we add that as well? I think at issue is, regardless of generic policy, each list needs a clear inclusion criteria, so our first step should be to come to consensus on same. There's no rush, so let's take our time, but I think whatever criteria we come up with should be something that would limit inclusion of things like this one unless multiple sources discuss it in detail.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:43, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh, nonsense. I argue at the same level for everything, as you know very well.  Look at TfD for May 25 and you'll see me expending the same amount of "stridency" (although I deny the applicability of the word) about some ridiculous navbox about fishes.  Now you're repeating Gorman's argument about how endless the list would be if we stooped to letting this item on.  It was ridiculous when he used it and it's ridiculous now.  Find three examples if you're so bloody sure.  Also, I didn't edit war over anything, so you should think about taking that back.  I never do edit war, you know.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:18, 9 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Alf, you added in content that had been removed several other times by other editors. Per BRD, if new content is disputed, it is kept out until there is agreement to add it. Instead, you warred it back in. In that case, even if it was only one edit, you fired on shot in an edit war. It's not a big deal, I do it, we all do, but don't get all lily white on me. 3 example? Yesallwomen controversy, paper published saying wikipedia's medical articles aren't that great, some students using wikipedia to do their research (ah, the controversy!). In fact, looking at the list, I think the whole thing needs trimming. But, first, as I said before, we should come to consensus on inclusion criteria for what makes a "controversy", and what makes it notable enough to include here. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:54, 9 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh, I may be invoooolved, since I believe the topic of discussion once said something bad about me on a certain website, so my !vote could be construed as sucking up to him. For the record, Kohs never bought me a beer and I don't believe he voted for me at my RfA. Nor did alf, I think, but please don't construe my !vote as a belated "fuck you" to an editor I respect very much. Drmies (talk) 01:39, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Drmies I am, as always, honored to have you disagree with me. Consider this statement an anachronistic absentee RfA support.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 06:05, 9 June 2014 (UTC)


 * @Alf...Obiwankenobi is more tactful than I as to the insinuation that you might be in the employ or a meatpuppet here...I apologize for being...for being a MONGO. Point is you do seem highly concerned about much to do about nothing...this isn't worth anyone's bother really. Was the disinvitation of Kohs, which kept him from being able to pin the tail on the donkey, controversial enough for inclusion here? I can't see it.--MONGO 02:38, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * MONGO, think nothing of it. It's just one of those things we all say in the heat of the moment.  I'm not being paid, and from what I hear, he doesn't pay enough to make it worth my while to edit on his behalf.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 05:44, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: just to be clear, obi wan doesn't think Alf is working for anyone but Alf - and by Alf, I mean the Alien Life Form - what is amazing is that Alf has never, as far as I can tell, edited the ALF_(TV_series) article, even though it is a more or less open secret that Alf is operating on instructions from Melmac, and this description of the character Alf is actually rather apt for our own Alf: "ALF has an enormous appetite; he is also troublesome, sarcastic, slovenly and cynical, and sometimes he puts himself at the risk of being discovered while perpetrating some of his often-unintentional pranks." But other than the obvious and nefarious extraterrestrial mind control connection, I don't think Alf is in the employ or shilling for anyone else.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:06, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, that goddamned TV show. FWIW, you're the only person who seems to have made that connection in writing.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 05:44, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * You're forgetting the most damning evidence of all: Alf was a puppet. Out with it, alf laylah wa laylah. Who are you working for? :D ,Wil (talk) 19:04, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * See Alf Laylah Wa Laylah. Double entendre? Wbm1058 (talk) 03:33, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep, it's purposeful. That's how long it takes to get anything done around here is the basic idea.  And the narrative structure is quite similar.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:40, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrary-ish break
Question - As far as I can tell, Kohs's notability still stems from MyWikiBiz. I don't think this would have received even marginal attention if it had been some unknown IP editor who had been disinvited. The talk Kohs submitted and the accepted panel he took issue with were furthermore on the subject of paid editing. There doesn't seem to be a new Wikipedia controversy going on--just Wikimedia taking action against an already controversial figure. So couldn't the conference events just be added as a single sentence at the end of the 2006 MyWikiBiz paragraph? E.g. "In June 2014 Kohs was denied admittance to a Wikimedia-sponsored conference for which he had submitted a proposal to again engage the community on the subject of paid editing.(refs)" ...Rough wording, of course. Hopefully this hasn't been proposed already -- there's a lot of text here :) --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  20:53, 9 June 2014 (UTC)


 * , that is an excellent suggestion! Seriously.  Would you like to frame it as a formal proposal in a level two section, or, if not, do you have any objection to my doing so?  I really think it's a good way to split the baby.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:20, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * FTR: I also have no objection with this getting a minor mention on the Kohs/MyWikiBiz article. It pretty meets our normal standards for inclusion there in a way that it doesn't here. To avoid two "informal RfCs" (which misses most of the point of an rfc...) from occurring on the same page at the same time, it would be good to hold discussion on that page, with only a brief mention of it here.  Since RfC's are not at all required to last thirty days and one of their main purposes is attracting uninvolved editors, can you explain what your motivation to start one here was other than ensuring that few uninvolved editors were present and you didn't have to worry about writing a neutral summary of the issue? Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:58, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The suggestion is to include it in the MyWikiBiz paragraph in this article, Kevin. Try to keep up.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Alf, when there's already an open ANI against you regarding your ability to play nice with other editors, you might want to try to play nice with other editors. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:07, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Kevin, when there are already serious doubts about your ability to keep the conversation focused on content, you might want to try to keep the conversation focused on content.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Essentially every comment I've made on this page that hasn't been questioning why you are abrogating fairly standard guidelines and policies for no apparent reason has been directly discussing content relevant issues, except for those relatively few posts pointing out that when you're already at ANI over civility issues you might want to try to be civil. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:25, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Don't forget your oblique threats against me. I make them out to be about 14% of your edits here.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:31, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * - Thanks. To keep things as simple as possible in what is turning out to be a somewhat messy affair maybe you should go forward with proposing it as you see fit. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  02:18, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * OK, I will do that. Thanks again for a really excellent idea.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I made the original edit, and I think this is not a good idea at all. This controversy has little to do with Greg Kohs; it is about the fact that a person who no one has proven has presented a threat to anyone was banned from WikiConference USA. In fact, I think it would be better to leave Greg Kohs' name out of the original text and let it stand. Thanks! ,Wil (talk) 02:41, 10 June 2014 (UTC)


 * FWIW: it wasn't Wikimedia taking action against anyone, it was the organizers from WMNYC and WMDC, two of Wikimedia chapters. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:22, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * This is true. I think it makes a lot of sense to be as specific as possible about this. To be clear, it was the organizers representing Wikimedia New York City and Wikimedia Washington DC, two local chapters of the Wikimedia Foundation who banned someone from a conference that they themselves promoted as "open". Would you agree with this, Kevin? Thanks! ,Wil (talk) 02:46, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * In the interest of following Wikipedia's rules, we should stick as closely to what was stated in the NYM piece, including using the qualifier "allegedly." Until we have a RS talking about the conference being promoted as open or one detailing the friendly space policy, neither bit belongs in the article. Though I don't feel great about sticking entirely to what the source says, because the bit about Kohs being scheduled to give a talk is factually incorrect and contradicted by primary sources.  Assuming we end up puttin it in the section that already exists about mywikibiz which is discussed in one of the way higher than reasonable number of sections below, I'd suggest something simple to avoid problems of trying to juxtapose primary and secondary sources - "Gregory Kohs was allegedly banned from attending WikiConference USA." As it is, the secondary source sadly isn't reat, and both doesn't mention chapters, and claims we only have 22,000 users among other errors. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * OK, so we should stick to what was stated in the NYM piece until we shouldn't because it is factually incorrect? ,Wil (talk) 05:51, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * - unfortunately, if we're following our content policies, that is in fact pretty much we what we should do, yeah. I have significant qualms about what I just suggested, but having seen what relaxing the letter of our content policies does in controversial areas, I believe that they're worth following pretty much to the letter in controversial areas (and I do so even when the result isn't something I like.) If the story picks up more steam in the future and more reliable sources are made available, then we'll be able to better improve the description, but until then, we're pretty much stuck with the secondary source we have. I am personally okay with omitting information we know 100% is wrong, but even that is an editorial judgment that not all would agree with. We're an encyclopedia based off of secondary sources, and sometimes that means that even though we do include information that we'd love to personally add to or correct, it's not usually in our best interests over all.  Explaining why I believe that fully is out of the scope of this page, but if you think about really controversial areas, you can probably guess why, as a community, that's more or less the way we've decided we should operate. (For instance: think about how many arguments would occur at evolution or God if we let people speak from their own personal experiences rather than secondary sources.)  I personally draw the line at including information tha't I know is 100% is factually incorrect, but not everyone does that - we had a big thing about "Verifiability, not truth" going around for quite some time. To bring it back to this article: if we let people speak about thing that were not found in reliable sources, the article would end up covering my perspective, KTR's perspective, the perspective of a bunch of other people who were there or observed from afar, and a lot of other stuff.  It might end up being something useful in the end, but that's not what Wikipedia fundamentally is. Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:24, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

 * Seriously? "No further time and effort should at present be spent on this feigned and manufactured controversy. It appears that this article and its talkpage are being used to emphasize a few editors' strong personal disagreement with the Wikiconference's decision to disinvite Mr. Kohs, which is not the proper purpose of mainspace."  Is it not enough that you are able to state your opinion along with other editors, you have also to try to shut down the conversation?  And you comment not on content but on contributors and their motives?  First we have administrators edit-warring and now we have an arbitrator explicitly failing to assume good faith and accusing without evidence "a few editors" of violating talk page policy?  Is making unsubtantiable accusations like that "the proper use of mainspace" in your opinion?&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:56, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * If I believed I could shut down the conversation(s) on this page unilaterally, I would be delusional, and whatever may be my drawbacks as a Wikipedian, I am not that. I do think that valuable editor time is being misspent here, however, and it's my right to say so. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:26, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Tah!&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:28, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * : In fact, you're the only person here who can shut down the conversation(s) on this page unilaterally. It's simple. Just tell us why Greg Kohs was not allowed to attend WikiConference USA 2014. Thanks! ,Wil (talk) 04:40, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I just changed my opinion on the usefulness of this discussion now that you've shown up, NYB. It is well worth my time to finally get an answer as to why Greg was not allowed at the conference. You're right. This is a "feigned and manufactured controversy." And that's because the controversy is that the Wikiconference USA 2014 organizers banned an attendee from an "open" conference without citing a reason, as they should have if they were organizing a truly "open" event. In fact, you can end it all right now, NYB. Just tell us, in as much detail as is appropriate, why Greg Kohs was not allowed to attend Wikiconference USA 2014. ,Wil (talk) 04:25, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

All right. We just strayed back in to that territory of asking people to not talk about something. I'm glad it was NYB, tho, because I have something to say to him. NYB, I think it is highly unethical of a conference organizer to assert that there are good reasons for banning an attendee that they are privately aware of and not disclose them. You are playing with a man's reputation, NYB, and frankly it's starting to look like you'd be perfectly willing to compromise his to save your own. You are condemning him without a trial, and that is precisely the issue at the heart of this controversy. There is only one circumstance I can think of under which that would be appropriate, and that's if this attendee presented a threat to other attendees. In that case, I think many people would agree that it is sufficient disclosure to simply state that he was not allowed because he presented a threat. So, it's about time we got down to brass tacks. Was Greg Kohs banned from WikiConference USA 2014 because he presented a threat to other attendees, including, not limited to, organizers, presenters, or sponsored attendees, either legally or physically? You have the floor. ,Wil (talk) 04:14, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Your silence is deafening. ,Wil (talk) 07:26, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It's making me kind of uncomfortable. I would be really uncomfortable if I was in that group picture, which could lead to speculation that I might have been part of that committee that made this decision for which you are simply the messenger. Wbm1058 (talk) 13:25, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The above was posted in the "oppose" section. I have moved it to here because RfCs cannot be followed once people start making points everywhere. Re the question asked: I would say that line of questioning would be fine in a webforum, but it's way off-topic here. Also, it's a question that cannot be answered. More than that, there is no answer that would be to the satisfaction of the questioner. Johnuniq (talk) 07:16, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for moving this to the right section. Do you have personal insight on what would satisfy me? If so, please tell me what would be required to satisfy me beyond the answer to the question I've asked above. ,Wil (talk) 07:57, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * At Wikipedia it's better to move towards resolving an issue (which is always content in an article), so while I agree that my comment has a logic error, it would be more helpful to identify what would satisfy you because time spent investigating my error is time wasted. The issue is completely off-topic for Wikipedia but I'll add a little more. While "yes" or "no" might be described as possible answers to the question, my opinion is that neither of those would be satisfying. A "yes" would raise a lot of questions while also falling under "cannot be answered". A "no" would imply there was some tantalizing response just out of reach. Johnuniq (talk) 08:39, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Could you advise on the best forum to continue this discussion in? ,Wil (talk) 00:27, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi! I'll respond on your talk page. - Bilby (talk) 01:29, 13 June 2014 (UTC)