Talk:Oliver Kamm/Archive 2

Protection
I protected this page due to excessive revert warring here, but I would like to unprotect it as soon as possible, in keeping with the Wikipedia free editing spirit. I encourage all editors here to try to collaborate and reach some consensus. I don't expect all of you to have the same POV - that would be boring - but I do expect you all to be civil and try to find a reasonable middle ground. Once you decide you can all get along with minimal reversions and maximal collaboration, please let me know and I'll unprotect. Thanks, Crum375 04:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * 1. Oliver Kamm cannot accurately be described as a Times columnist. He is not even considered a columnist by the paper himself. Have a look at the Times opinion page website where they have a list of all their columnists. Kamm's name does not appear. To claim he is a columnist is sheer puffery. He may well become a columnist in the future, but until that point, he is best describedd as an occasional contributor of comment pieces, or an op-ed writer, as suggested by Felix-Felix.


 * 2. The description of Kamm's legal dispute with Clark is extremely one sided and does not address the affair objectively. It does not even mention the reason Clark sued: because malicious, anonymous emails,repeating Kamm's libels, and cced to Kamm, were being sent to Clark's editors in a blatant attempt to get them to drop Clark as a writer. Clark bought the action in the county court for reasons he explained on his blog, and the case did not come to court, not because the judge thought it was an 'abuse of process' but because Kamm did not consent to the case being heard there. The highly subjective claim that Clark's lawsuit was an 'abuse of process' comes from Kamm and his lawyers and should be taken out. Had Kamm given his consent, the case could have been heard in the County Court. Any coverage of the Kamm-Clark dispute has to be fair to both parties.


 * 3. Felix-Felix is right: Kamm's views on the destruction of socialism are clearly relevant to any debate about his political views. Kamm likes to portray himself as a leftist and quite clearly is embarrassed by his quote, but it was made, is sourced, and should be included. Elena Zam's arguments as to why it shouldn't, are very feeble. If someone claims to be a leftist their views on socialism are extremely relevant!


 * This article should be unprotected: it is only being protected because Kamm and/or his close associates want it to be an alternative website to promote their man in the best possible light. But that is not what wikipedia is supposed to be about! I hope we can all reach agreement on the above points. citylightsgirlCitylightsgirl [09:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)]


 * It has now been noted by the administrators that a sock puppet was used after Citylightsgirl was blocked by a 3RV breach. This is relevant to Citylightsgirl's edits which appear on only two articles on the whole site and are highly insulting to several editors. I've asked Citylightsgirl why his edits include info about Neil Clark that is not published anywehere and info about him that is included on Wikipedia before it has been published somewhere else and he hasn't replied. As the administrators say in the link, there does seem to be more going on here than meets the eye and I recommend they also should look at other editors doing the same edits as Citylightsgirl particularly user Yehudiwho. --ElenaZam 20:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there any derogatory BLP issue that anyone sees here that needs to be removed? Please let me know ASAP. Thanks, Crum375 15:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment by subject of article
This is my first comment on Wikipedia. I expect it will be my last. I make no comment at all on the editorial content of this article. Unfortunately, however, I see no way of making known to Wikipedia my concerns about it and two others than to place this comment. Those concerns derive from what in my view are problems about Wikipedia, but they stand independently. I hope the administrators of this site will take note both of my specific objections and of my more general reservations.

I have followed the exchanges on this site, from one editor in particular, for the last few weeks with some concern. I did write to Wikipedia’s volunteer staff to point out that the sort of unsupported and anonymous remarks posted on this site were different from the usual run of blog hyperbole which no one takes seriously and I always ignore. Eventually I heard from one volunteer who told me that my concerns could not be dealt with in private email and had to be resolved on the Talk page of the appropriate entry. He or she (unisex name) added a link to the Wikipedia entry for Disputes Resolution.

I found this response a little disturbing. I am not part of the Wikipedia “community”, because I am sceptical of an encyclopaedia in which everyone’s contribution is of equal weight. Trusting that corrections will emerge from a collaborative process is in my view intrinsically flawed. Someone ought always to have editorial control for any publication, especially in a work of reference. In the absence of such a figure, there appears to be no way of responding to Wikipedia other than by correcting the errors oneself.

As it turns out, the particular editor’s claims are such that correction is not really necessary. (Even the administrators are accused of being controlled by me, their malign Svengali.) To remove all of this stuff from Wikipedia would require formidable efforts at redaction, and I don’t ask for this. I am merely posting this comment on the talk page associated with me so that my concerns can be recorded in the right place for them.

I don’t criticise the administrators, who are clearly doing their best within the constraints of Wikipedia practice. But the primary quality of Wikipedia’s output is not accuracy but consensus. These are not the same thing, and when one party to the process is disruptive then the pressure to accommodate him or her will skew the discussion. This appears to be happening in the administrators’ understandable anxiety to have any empirical assertion backed by a third-party source. The problem is that in the case of the purported legal claim against me in 2006 the only such source is one that reports the supposed plaintiff’s intentions before the purported claim was issued. Leaving a Wikipedia article at that point gives the impression that a purported legal claim against me is an unresolved and open issue. The administrators should immediately see what is wrong with this, and understand my strong objection to its appearance in an encyclopaedic reference.

Legal language is convoluted, but the reason is to be unambiguous and not open to alternative interpretation. The purported action was in breach of the Civil Procedure Rules, and as such constituted an abuse of process. A letter detailing this was sent to the plaintiff on 24 April 2006, with a copy sent to the clerk of the Court in case the Judge wished to make a direction so that the Court’s time was not wasted further. On 3 May 2006 the presiding Judge did this. The Court Order states: “Upon consideration of the court file it is ordered that the claim is struck out.” The plaintiff has a copy of this order, as does my legal representative. To say the purported action was an abuse of process that was struck out by the Court is not just what I have said on my web site (in what I had intended to be my only comment on the affair): it is what the English legal system says, as can be checked in the Records of Proceedings. If you are not able to assimilate this information in your encyclopaedia, then you should not have any comment on the subject, let alone attempt your own synthesis. (On a less serious point, I am surprised that, with all the altercations on Gilad Atzmon and so forth in the article about me, not a single editor has noticed that the name of Clement Attlee – one of the more important figures in modern British political history - is spelt wrong. I take that as a minor illustration of the unreliability of Wikipedia.)

I apologise for the length of this comment, but it will be my only one. I would ask anyone reading this who is minded to edit this article not to get involved. It does me no favours, and I should be sorry if further exasperation were caused those who devote time and effort to policing Wikipedia. --OliverKamm 19:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Please let me know ASAP if you see any specific item currently in the article that you believe is defamatory and is poorly sourced or unsourced. Thanks, Crum375 19:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice obfuscation from Oliver Kamm. The claim that Clark's action was 'an abuse of process' is Kamm's interpretation of events and is not backed up by any primary source. It has been removed from Clark's wikipedia page because of this, and should be removed from here. citylightsgirlCitylightsgirl [10:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)]

Removed "Neil Clark affair" section
I have temporarily removed this section, as it appears to me to be based on blogs as sources for defamatory BLP remarks. I don't want to get involved in the actual editing, nor do I have knowledge of or opinion on the dispute. I encourage the editors here to try to iron out a consensual WP:NPOV and WP:A way of presenting those events. In the meanwhile, per BLP policy, removal of the problematic content is warranted. Crum375 13:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Good move. Thanks for doing that, Crum375. As it happens, I suspect that this kerfuffle is not WP:Notable enough to deserve coverage in this article. Can anyone make a case based on Wikipedia rules for covering it? Cheers, CWC (talk) 06:59, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, chuck the whole lot out, potentially defamatory for all parties and not really notable.  Felix Felix talk 11:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

So...
Is there any concensus about moving forward here?

The 3 points listed above were;
 * 1) Is it accurate to describe Oliver Kamm as a "columnist" on The Times when his pieces appear irregularly?
 * 2) Is it original research to say that describing Oliver Kamm as a socialist is inaccurate?
 * 3) Is it acceptable under WP:BLP to mention the legal dispute between Oliver Kamm and Neil Clark? Should this be answered in the affirmative, how can the paragraph be phrased so as to include all points of view fairly?

So, in order;
 * 1) Do we agree on calling Kamm an op-ed writer (or some other term for his job)?
 * 2) Are we going to keep the sentence about him not being a socialist?
 * 3) Are we going to miss out the 'Neil Clark Affair' on the grounds of all-round BLP vios?

Answers, please, and then we can move forward.  Felix Felix talk 23:00, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I can now give my answers to the first two. On the first, I note in particular that all of the pieces in The Times are in the "Guest contributors" section, so that seems to be his official designation by the newspaper. His pieces appear in an irregular and sometimes infrequent fashion and I think it is correct to observe that the designation as a 'columnist' suggests something in the way of a regular. However "op-ed writer" is somewhat American in tone.


 * On the second, there seems to be no-one that has claimed Oliver Kamm as a socialist, so it does constitute original research to refute a charge which no-one has made. We should simply leave the quoted description of Callaghan at that, with the reader responsible for supplying their own interpretation.


 * I'm still thinking about the Neil Clark affair. Sam Blacketer 23:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * On (1) - as I have noted abouve, "columist" in no way implies or requires regularity. Your characterization of Kamm's status at The Times is somewhat misleading - yes - he's listed in the "Guest contributors" section, but that section is a subsection of the "Columnists" section, which seems to indicate that the Times views him as a columnist.


 * On (2) - if we just leave the quoted description of Callaghan - that begs the question of why that particular quote, out of the thousands that Kamm produces weekly, is fit to be in the article? Isarig 03:43, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * "Columnist" seems to be one of those words which has subtly different pejorative meanings: it could refer to anyone who writes a column in a newspaper (the British meaning), or it could refer to a regular author (the U.S. meaning). As this encyclopaedia is written for an international audience, it's wrong to assume the British sense automatically even with a British subject. "Guest contributor" seems to sum up the situation in a way no-one can confuse. On the Callaghan quote, it is of a piece with Kamm's support for a Conservative as opposed to an anti-war Labour candidate in offering illumination of his views on the Labour Party. Sam Blacketer 09:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think the US meaning includes regularity, and have provided the Webster definition, above. In the absense of very compelling evidence to the contrary, we should used the subjects self-description, which is also used by many 3rd party sources - "columnist". If you want Kamm's views on the Labour party - find ones that state them directly, rather that one which some might interpret as such. Isarig 14:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm with Isarig (!) on point 2) above-we ought to keep the part about him not appearing to be a socialist. I don't see why it would have to be a refutation not to be OR.  Felix Felix talk 14:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * That's not what I am saying at all. That entire sentence does not belong in the article. Isarig 14:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The sentence definately belongs in the article, but a shortened version does not!  Felix Felix talk 07:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It definitely belongs? Why? In what way is it more important or notable than the dozens of other quotes by Kamm, published almost daily on his blog? Why this, and not, say, "I commented on the case in this post, and particularly commended the stand taken by Nicolas Sarkozy in defence of free speech. " from today's post? Or 'Schlesinger gives a caustic recitation of Chomsky's "scholarly fakery" with regard to a speech at Baylor by President Truman in 1947' from 2 days ago? Isarig 01:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Goodness, Isarig, if I didn't know you were being deliberately obtuse, I should have to surmise you had Korsakov's psychosis, it's relevant in the politics section because socialism was a core belief of the Labour party in which according to tis article, Kamm was an enthusiastic member. The interested reader might therefore assume Kamm was a socialist, which he is not. This is not tricky to understand.  Felix Felix talk 17:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Last warning: another violation of WP:NPA like the one above will get you reported and blocked. Concluding that Kamm is not a socialist from his comment on Callaghan is OR, as has been explained to you repeatedly. Isarig 05:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Grow up Isarig, The sentence is not OR, as has been explained to you ad nauseum. And report away, if it will make you happy.  Felix Felix talk 16:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't say you were not warned. Isarig 16:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Was that a first or last "warning"? :-)  Felix Felix talk 20:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Point 1) Op-ed writer is a bit American in tone, but not much, and it's a valid desciption of what he does, and would appear not to ruffle any feathers, so why not?  Felix Felix talk 14:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * On point 1): How about "occasional columnist"? Just a thought. CWC 16:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy with that. Sam Blacketer 16:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me.  Felix Felix talk 07:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Further comment by subject of article
Thank you to the administrator, Crum375, for asking me to alert him to problematic, defamatory or inadequately sourced material. There is a problem, and I'm sorry for the tardiness in commenting on it - but it is merely the one I've already referred you to, and which I evidently can't have been sufficiently forceful about.

You have taken out reference to Neil Clark's purported legal claim against me, and this seems to me sensible. But in the entry on Mr Clark himself, for understandable reasons of your wishing to be careful about including only reliable third-party sources, you have made no reference to the outcome of Mr Clark's purported claim. If you leave the subject at the point where someone declares his intentions to take legal action, then you leave it - to the reader - an open and unresolved question whether the defendant was guilty of the alleged offence. This is objectionable on obvious legal and moral principles. I have pointed out that there is a reliable third-party source recording that Mr Clark's purported claim, being a violation of the Civil Procedure Rules and thus an abuse of process, was struck out by the presding Judge on 3 May 2006. That source is the List of Proceedings of the Court (the claim no. is 60X01433). If for whatever reason Wikipedia policy is not able to take account of this publicly available information, then you should make no comment on the subject.

One far more minor point is that if you (sensibly) don't wish to venture any comment on the purported legal claim, then you've made a minor slip in referring on this page to "blogs as sources for defamatory BLP remarks". To the extent that the remarks you're referring to are sourced from my blog (as they seem to be), you are thereby making an editorial judgement that I may have made defamatory remarks. It is of course my very strong case that I have done no such thing.

Finally, there is an even more minor point on an unrelated issue, which I raise because it illustrates my concerns at the way Wikipedia works. Any normal reference source would check the claims that inform the content of an article. The assertions about the frequency and regularity of my published writings have not been checked, as it would have been easy to do. Since I started writing for The Times in 2004 I've written - including articles in a few other places - a fairly constant average rate of a couple of articles a month. That's not prolific, but it may inform the slightly surreal discussion on what you call me. I say it's surreal because I'm bemused that I pointed out an obvious factual error (the spelling of Clement Attlee's name) which remains uncorrected while you have this painful discussion that incorporates obviously subjective judgements that appear nowhere else - what I understand is known in Wikipedia terminology as "original research". Sorry again for the length of this comment, but as my last one was ineffective I hope this will suffice permanently. OliverKamm 19:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * To take up the issue of Clement Attlee, I for one would have changed it immediately were it not for the fact that the article is protected from editing. The point about blogs as sources is that blogs are considered as primary sources for the contents of the blog, because they are self-published and not subject to any editorial checking. Any claim that is negative about a living person which is sourced from a blog is not considered as adequately sourced through WP:BLP. That does not mean that the claim is untrue, merely that it is inadequately sourced.


 * It would be helpful if there was a good secondary source about the abortive legal action involving Neil Clark - a newspaper or journal report. Court papers themselves are considered primary sources; although they are certainly good for WP:BLP, writing up the story based on them may be original research. If this feels to you a bit like navigating a maze, then that is sometimes how it feels to me. Sam Blacketer 20:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Indeed; I wasn't questioning your scrupulousness in navigating what does seem like a maze. I am merely suggesting that - even within the constraints of Wikipedia policies that you've helpfully pointed to - you're being excessively cautious in your interpretation of what can properly be said, and this causes me a problem with respect to the issue about the legal claim. It would certainly be helpful if there were an impartial and reliable secondary source about that abortive legal action. Unfortunately that was never going to happen, owing to the disparity between the rather grandiloquent claims made for that legal action before it started (according to the account given in The Guardian article referenced on Mr Clark's page) and the diminished reality that the claim was brought in the County Court (i.e. a court that deals with minor matters of civil law) and immediately struck out on application from my lawyers. My point is merely that if Wikipedia includes any reference to that case (and I note that it's been queried on this page whether there should be such a reference, as regards me at least), then it must refer to the conclusion of the case and not only to the period beforehand. As it stands, the reference to the case on the page about Neil Clark stops at the point where the action is threatened (not, as the article currently says, "attempted"). This puts me in an invidious position and Wikipedia in a very tricky one, because it leaves it for the reader an open and unresolved question whether I am guilty of an offence in English civil law. It is not an open question. As things stand, we are in the absurd position that because you lack a secondary source of the quality of The Guardian to say this, then in perpetuity (or for so long as the article remains unamended) my guilt or innocence of the civil offence must remain an unanswered question. I'm sure you will see why I find this impossible to accept. If there is reference to this case, then there must be a reference to its conclusion.


 * I take note of your caution that a Court judgement is a primary document, but I still - on my reading of the policies you point to - see no problem with this under Wikipedia's own code. All you need do is refer to the Guardian report of the threatened legal action and add that the claim was struck out. Primary sources, as I understand it, can be used provided they admit of no ambiguity and don't require specialist knowledge to interpret. The primary document declaring that the legal claim was struck out is just such a primary source: it has only one meaning, and non-specialists can interpret it perfectly well. As I have said, however, if it is not appropriate under Wikipedia policies to use that information, then this site should have no reference to the case at all. It's particularly important that editors do not attempt their own synthesis of this information, for the reasons I've pointed to. Consensus is not accuracy, and where my innocence of a legal charge is at stake, only accuracy will do. (I make no comment at all on the question raised about whether the issue is significant enough to warrant inclusion on this site - that's a matter for neutral editors to decide.)


 * One additional consideration might be relevant, though, and it's the point I was making about the exchanges among you and other editors about how to describe my writing. I see that there are conflicting views on how influential, if at all, that writing is - and again, it's not for me to make a judgement on that. But the mere fact that you and other editors propose describing me with labels that, so far as I am aware (and I would be aware of this), have been used about me by no published source anywhere at any time suggests that you are in fact quite willing to engage in what I would call subjective judgement and Wikipedia calls original research. That being so, I'm surprised you're so cautious about citing what is not a subjective judgement at all but an unambiguous and demonstrable fact, namely the failure of Mr Clark's legal claim against me. Certainly, that question is a lot more important to my public reputation than my influence or frequency of publication.


 * Again, I'm sorry for a third long comment; but the issue of judgements in law is obviously a very important one to get right. OliverKamm 19:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

A comment on OliverKamm's published writings. He's written literally dozens and dozens of newspaper columns and longer articles, for The Times and for publications like The Guardian and Prospect. He qualifies as a newspaper columnist and political commentator at the very least - and quite an influential one. So minimising his importance on this score is just ridiculous. Truthprofessor 15:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Let's not overegg the pudding! He's an op-ed writer and occasional columnist.Both factual descriptions.  Felix Felix talk 17:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * He's also on the editorial board of Democratiya. He co-founded the Henry Jackson Society. He was one of the prime movers of the Euston Manifesto. Sounds pretty influential to me! And, as he comments above, there aren't any published sources that describe him as an "op-ed writer" or "occasional columnist," so both "factual descriptions" are clearly OR. Truthprofessor 20:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * None of the above make him 'influential' as an op-ed writer or occasional columnist, both of which are accurate descriptions of his job. Or the most notable of his jobs.  Felix Felix talk 21:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Lets Try Again..
Any ideas about moving forward here?  Felix Felix talk 21:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Is that a no?  Felix Felix talk 06:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I think that article is quite acceptable as it stands. Cheers, CWC 08:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I have little knowledge or POV on the general subject. From my naive position, it does look like a relevant detail has been removed. Further reading on my behalf could establish whether GA's writings [ "GA" refers to Gilad Atzmon ]  are in fact antisemitic, however since a massive majority of antisemitism must arise from non-Jewish persons, (as anti-Islamic writings etc. greatly arise from non-Muslims etc.) this is a relevant indicator (to me) as to the contentiousness of the charge and such indications should not be cropped from articles once they have been informed. Discrete POV protectionism through removal of detail is plausibly apparent here. Articles should grow to enlighten POVs not be pruned to normalise them. I would suggest replacing the charge of antisemitism with the charge of being a 'self-hating jew' which concisely communicates more available detail. peace. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.16.126.185 (talk • contribs) 13:01, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Multi-item reference
I've just done a tidy-up on the references, and was a bit puzzled by one of them. It's used at the end of the following sentence:
 * In particular, he has cited the SWP's promotion of the anti-Zionist activist and jazz musician Gilad Atzmon, a Jewish former Israeli citizen whose statements (including references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Holocaust denial) Kamm has characterised as anti-semitic.

The end-of-sentence reference includes no less than four citations:
 * 1) SWP's support for Atzmon.
 * 2) Atzmon, Gilad biography Gilad Atzmon's website.
 * 3) Atzmon, Gilad politics Gilad Atzmon's website.
 * 4) Kamm, Oliver. "The Red and the Brown", Oliver Kamm's weblog, July 23, 2004.

I think #1 should be used as a separate after "musician Gilad Atzmon,". Obviously we need #4. But why do we cite / link to Atzmon's biography and politiks page in this article? They are not substantiating anything in the article, and they can easily be found via #4 or our Gilad Atzmon article.

I therefore propose to delete #2 and #3, and split #1 off. Comments? CWC 15:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Woops, I'd forgotten about this. I've now deleted #2 and #3, and moved #1 to a new ref after "musician Gilad Atzmon," — WP:BRD in action. Cheers, CWC 11:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Blogger
I think it's a shame that the description 'blogger' has been removed. I, and I am sure many others, first came across Kamm in the blog world, and he still writes far more blog posts than posts for the Times or elsewhere. His blog also I think gives a better idea of his political views than the somewhat more restrained Times pieces. If no-one has any objections I'll restate that in a week. 85.210.171.176 19:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC) MJT

Oliver Kamm?
I think Kamm under the pseudonym "JohnBull" keeps deleting the criticisms section —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.123.26.189 (talk • contribs) 04:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No, I am certainly not Oliver Kamm. Anyone can start a blog and criticise someone, that is the reason why they're generally not allowed to be used as a source. And the Chomsky criticism of Kamm you keep adding is already in the article. --Johnbull (talk) 05:41, 24 November 2007 (UTC)