Talk:Operation Ore

Lack of sources for a type of edit

 * 'Townshend was caught up in the operation because he was doing research on the subject: Townshend was "caught up" in the operation because he had sought out (an offence under English law), paid for (an offence under English law) and viewed (his own words) child pornography. He did exactly the same things as Gary Glitter, yet his "motivation" appears to redeem the man. If research into "child abuse" included prowling the streets of London for underage prostitutes, would that similarly redeem the offender? 'I'll give you some slack for not understanding how Wikipedia works I do not need any slack from people whose sole purpose appears to be the minimisation of sexual offences against children where those sexual offences are committed by people they approve of, but where the same sexual offences can condemn other less attractive people to a life of "disgrace". I know how Wikipedia works. People who have a partisan approach to the facts use Wikipedia content polices so that Wikipedia presents the facts in whatever light suits their bias. Wiki-is-truth 11:30, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * You're going to have to accept the criticism. If you don't want to be criticised for your low-quality, opinion-driven contributions to the encyclopedia, don't touch the edit button.  It'll save you a lot of grief.  Leave the encyclopedia-building to people who care about following Wikipedia's content poicies, which insist that our opinions as editors don't matter anywhere near as much as the statements made by the sources we use.  This isn't the place for you to express your opinions, or for you to try and game the system by changing the wording to make someone sound more vile than our cited sources do.  You simply can NOT claim that you "know how Wikipedia works" until you absorb and accept that fact.  Again, I encourage you to read the policy pages I linked above.  -/- Warren 13:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I would accept the criticism if there were any. My "opinions" are entirely absent here - it is your opinions that are the problem. My cited sources? I haven't cited any sources, and nor have you - at least not reliable ones. It is entirely fine for Townshend to publish on his own website that he was committing crimes simply for "research purposes", but that does not make his self-opinion count as a valid reference that outweighs... say... the law. English law classes Townshend as a sex offender. People do not become sex offenders by dint of "research". There is a "legitimate reason" defence to child porn offences under English law, and Townshend was not able to avail himself of them. That means, no matter how loudly he or you protest, he has committed the offences. How about some sources? Minimisation: UK Home Office - Sex offenders typically deny both the full extent of their sexually deviant behaviour and the risk they pose of re-offending in the future (Nichols & Molinder, 1984). Breaking down denial is seen as an important pre requisite for change as offenders need to admit to their deviant behaviour in order for them to take responsibility for their offending. Without a clear understanding of what the offending behaviour involves the offender cannot develop the skills necessary to prevent re-offending. Townshend's criminal activity: Guardian article of 8 May 2003 quoting Scotland Yard: Inciting others to distribute these images leads to young children being seriously sexually assaulted to meet the growing demands of the internet customer. It is not a defence to access these images for research or out of curiosity. Please point out where my opinion comes into that, and where it says that Townshend was actually doing nothing wrong since it was for "research" purposes. Wiki-is-truth 15:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As to your opinions being stated here rather than mine, how about Almost every article you'll find on Operation Ore on, say, the BBC World News web site mentions Townshend, and the specific fact that he viewed a child porn web site for research purposes is brought up over and over again as an integral part of the subject(see above) in which Townshend's own minimisation of sexual offending is presented by you as "fact" when what it is in reality is a claim by Townshend that serves to present his offending behaviour in a less negative light, otherwise known as minimisation. Wiki-is-truth 15:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I must offer my apologies - I have belatedly realised that you think I object to the "for research" claim. I am quite happy to accept that Townshend claimed that he committed serious criminal offences for research. What I do not accept is that Townshend's should offered a "way out" of the severity of his behaviour by so doing. In particular, I do not accept that Wikipedia should perpetuate this let out, at least while Gary Glitter, who committed some of the same offences, is described here as a "disgraced English rock and pop singer and songwriter and a convicted paedophile". By virtue of the police's decision to offer Townshend a caution rather than press charges, and the unsurprising ignorance of journalists subsequently, Townshend has managed to avoid tags such this "disgraced" and "paedophile". That is normally called having double standards. 205.212.73.90 16:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC) Oh, I thought I had signed in. Just in it is something else you are unable to realise, the comment by 205.212.73.90 was in fact Wiki-is-truth 16:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Townshend's case is much different to that of Gary Glitter. Police investigation found thousands of child porn pictures on Glitter's computer, but none on Townshend's at all. Since there was no evidence for prosecution, Townshend was not charged. Pkeets 04:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Townshend denies the seriousness of his wrongdoing
The police found no evidence that Townshend possessed indecent photographs of children. However, they offered him the option of being charged with an offence and going through with a court trial, OR accepting a caution, which - from the police's statement - appears to have been for the offence of inciting distribution of indecent photographs of children. The police statement read (Guardian, 8 May 2003): ''Inciting others to distribute these images leads to young children being seriously sexually assaulted to meet the growing demands of the internet customer. It is not a defence to access these images for research or out of curiosity.'' Townshend himself admitted paying for access to a child porn website.

However, Townshend was told by the police that Landslide was a child porn website. Looking at his public statements, it's clear he never denied accessing the site; however, he said he saw no child porn there. Reconstruction of the site appears to show this is because there was none.Pkeets 04:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Townshend was unable to rely on the legitimate reason defence, which might arguably have been available to a charge of inciting distribution. This means the only people Townshend could convince he was doing "Research" were himself and those ignorant of or too stupid to understand English law. If Townshend truly believed himself to be innocent of the charges, he should not have accepted a caution; the normal thing to do is opt for trial and trust in the jury. Quoting Townshend as saying he was doing research is acceptable; repeating it as if it were fact is not acceptable - it is not true, it is not supported by the sources (that is, sources other than Townshend's own mouth), and it is POV. I am not the one "gaming the system" here... Wiki-is-truth 04:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Check Townshend's public statements. He admitted accessing the Landslide website, but said he saw no child porn, consistent with current reconstructions that indicate there was likely none there.Pkeets 03:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Category
Why is this category added: Category:Wrongful convictions. I didn't see anything about wrongful convictions in the article. --DanielCD 16:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The phrase "wrongful convictions" probably means "flawed convictions". But whether the people were actually guilty is not the issue here, legal process was undermined in this case, as is detailed in the article, and thats why that category is added. Jdcooper 01:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Removals and controversy section
Why was the controversy section removed? Should we incorporate it into the article? No one seems to have worked on this for a long time. If no one objects I may decide to reinsert the controversy section and have a look at it. Skinnyweed 23:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, it may be wise to get consensus to do so here, then reinsert it. Have the issues above been addressed? -- LV (Dark Mark)  01:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Use of Survivors Swindon as a reference is itself controversial
The "reference" to the Survivors Swindon site is inappropriate; the page does not detail the story in any way whatsoever and contains no reliable reports. Wiki-is-truth 10:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Duncan Campbell Articles
I've added some references which have just been published this month in the "controversy" section. Ricky, please note that both articles have been written by Duncan Campbell the investigative journalist and not Duncan Campbell the Guardian reporter. The PC Pro article credits him clearly, and the Guardian article uses first person in disucssing the investigation. Pkeets 10:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

For anyone looking for the Del Naja and Townshend info in the Campbell article, it's all the way at the bottom, boxed and in blue font. Pkeets (talk) 13:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

How many suicides?
I don't mean to be morbid, but I note that the sources say 33, not "at least 35"? Mdwh (talk) 10:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * "Operation Ore has become embedded in public consciousness as the landmark police operation that tracked down people - almost always men - who allegedly paid to access child pornography via computer. In all, 7,272 British residents were on its target lists, more than 2,000 of whom have never been investigated; and 39 men have killed themselves under the pressure of the investigations. Ore has dragged big names into the spotlight - such as the musicians Pete Townshend, the Who guitarist, and Robert del Naja of Massive Attack, both falsely accused of accessing child pornography."


 * I think this information is definitely worth including. Accusations of child porn or pedophilia are the most damaging ones possible in Western societies, and this puts the cost of the false accusations in bloodily clear black-and-white. --Gwern (contribs) 01:29 6 April 2009 (GMT)

possibly useful references?
transplanted from another page, where they aren't relevant, in case they might be useful here:
 * 1) Welsh Affairs Committee - Fourth Report, British House of Commons
 * 2) The MAPPA Guidance, National Probation Service for England and Wales, Circular 25/2003, 31 March 2003

Sssoul (talk) 09:52, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Recent revisions
76.108.156.73, your revisions make light of the references and indicate a vandal's point of view. If you have some objection to the neutrality of wording in the article, then you need to follow procedure and discuss it here. I'm reverting the wording to the more neutral version.Pkeets (talk) 21:04, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Since I gather you objected to some of the wording, I have tried to evaluate it for neutrality and made some slight changes.Pkeets (talk) 21:29, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Re. recent court case
Wikipedia is supposed to be based on proper secondary sources. While conspirational ramblings based on what one wants to see in a court ruling may be acceptable in some places, they are not here. Nevard (talk) 09:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

My recent revert
I'm afraid that when I see a single purpose account using phrases such as "even a cursory read of the judgement shows" and "woefully inaccurate" then I hear those metaphorical alarm bells ringing. The line of argument may or may not have merit but, if it does, it needs sourcing to reliable sources that don't have obvious agenda. --Peter cohen (talk) 21:39, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with the comment above - I noticed the reverting on this page, and the version preferred by User:TheManWithaFlan appears to me to be less in keeping with WP:NPOV (and what the sources actually say) than the other version, which I have restored. I have invited User:TheManWithaFlan to comment here and discuss his issues with it rather than continuing to revert. Robofish (talk) 14:34, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
 * On closer inspection, I think TheManWithaFlan may have a point about the quotes being taken out of context. I've cut the information on this recent case down to the minimum necessary (along with the speculative words 'perhaps final') which should hopefully be more acceptable: . Robofish (talk) 16:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If the "pure speculation" quote is taken out of context- which I don't really feel is the case- then it is taken out of context in the Reg news story referenced too. Not that there aren't other quotations that could properly be included by reference to secondary sources "There is no real possibility that a reasonable jury, faced with the evidence we have considered, would not conclude that he was the person responsible for the transactions in issue. We have no doubt whatsoever as to the safety of his conviction." Nevard (talk) 17:32, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

About Recent Reverts
There seems to be serious misunderstanding on what the criminal court of appeal considered and ruled on. Shortly after the ruling 'The Register', your secondary source John, took a quote from Jim Gamble the senior police officer behind operation ore. It is those quotes, from a hardly impartial source, that you offer us. My point is that Mr Gamble was wrong to have made these, because they did not accurately reflect what the appeal judges had found in their written judgement, our primary source. More, by comparing the Gamble quotes to the judgement, and particularly (though by no means exclusively), paragraphs 5 and 37, it is immediately apparent that what he says in those quotes cannot be correct. The quotes are in danger of giving the impression that the criminal court of appeal stated that claims of credit card fraud in relation to the Landslide site as used in Operation Ore were completely unfounded. Whereas what they actually said, was that they were not going into detailed consideration of these factors because the evidence against the appellant was so compelling in all other respects, that even if credit card fraud was shown to exist more generally in relation to Operation Ore, it would not make a difference to this specific case. They do however, then go on in paragraph 37 of the primary source judgement, to acknowledge that both experts agreed there was some degree of credit card fraud involved. The quotes Mr Gamble gives, if they appear in Wikipedia the article, must therefore be related to the primary source to show their incompatibility. That is what I sought to do, and I'm sorry if my lack of eloquence was apparent. Without being put into the proper context of the actual primary source - our judgement, anyone reading this article will be misled into thinking the appeal court found on something which they did not. The primary source judgement also shows that the quotes Mr Gamble offered to this secondary source, were out of context. They related to very specific aspects of this individual's case, and were not the sweeping references Mr Gamble's quotes alluded to. My position remains that if the quotes from the secondary source go in, so too must the information from the primary source to show how how of context and misleading those quotes were. Robo I feel found a working compromise by taking the quotes out, and thereby negating the need for context from the primary source.

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
I thought it wa about time to bring this article to WP:ANI. See the linked thread.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:22, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Avalanche duplication
A lot of the "origins" content seems to be duplicated from Operation Avalanche (child pornography crackdown); I don't think it is relevant to re-hash that article. I propose to cut most of the material back to a reasonable overview of what led up to Op Ore - unless anyone can come up with a reasonable suggestion for it to say :) --Errant $(chat!)$ 16:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds a good idea.--Peter cohen (talk) 17:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

O'Shea
I'm not sure that an in-depth analysis of the O'Shea appeal is of significance; it is currently given a lot of weight in the article without decent secondary sourcing. Because the content is about a living person we must explicitly avoid sourcing content to court judgements (this is laid out in our sourcing policy). I'd recommend finding further secondary sourcing and cutting content back to the necessary detail. --Errant $(chat!)$ 11:39, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I am with the sentiment of what you are saying. But the judgement is very recent and we only have one secondary source so far - The Register article. Unfortunately the police officer behind Operation Ore is quoted extensively here on his view of what the court said, and appears to have influenced the entire piece. What he says is demonstrably wrong at a factual level, and the quotes he gives are taken seriously out of context with the judgement. My concern is that if we are going to refer to O'Shea, and I agree with you that its significance has been hyped, then doing so only through this secondary source, with no reference to the primary source permitted, could seriously mislead people not familiar with the background. I personally feel that a simple factual reference to O'Shea is the way to go. It was a bad decision for those opposed to Operation Ore, and it is fair to reflect that. But when contributors try to give the impression that the O'Shea judgement found no basis for credit card fraud being involved in the wider operation, when it patently found nothing of the kind, and spells out repeatedly that this is not what it was finding, then I do feel that it's fair to highlight such. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheManWithaFlan (talk • contribs) 12:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Very recent". Yes, see WP:RECENTISM. I've removed mention of the case from the lead, and cut down the discussion of the case. We should not pick out our favourite highlights from primary sources such as this ruling. Fences  &amp;  Windows  22:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

More propaganda and recentism reverted.
An IP user who inserted some very large claims about the significance of a recent case where a man won damages from the police after they prosecuted him against expert advice. I've had a look at the Telegraph and Register articles neither of which talk about significant implications for Operation Ore as a whole. In the absence of any evidence from a WP:Reliable source, then the claims seem to be propagandistic and their inclusion is contrary to WP:DUE.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:17, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Fraud
According to http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/06/operation_ore/, the fraud appeal has been rejected. I think this verdict (with possibly a better ref) should be used to draw a line under that defence. Widefox (talk) 09:36, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Recent editing
It's been a while since I looked at the article, and I see that quite a bit of content has been cut in favor of the Operation Avalanche link. However, the article as now presented does not make it clear that the Landslide business offered management services to a large number of porn sites, and that very few were later found to be illegal. This means that most users of the gateway site had no idea that there were illegal offerings. In my opinion, this is the main cause of controversy in Operation Ore as opposed to Operation Avalanche, and it should be mentioned in this article. Since there appear to be a number of people interested in editing here, I'll put it up for discussion. If no one has discussion, I'll add something back in about it myself. Pkeets (talk) 14:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

DA Notice that first shutdown Op Ore
Has the DA Notice reported on by the Scottish Herald newspaper that was used as the first stage of shutting down Operation Ore gone into the "Memory Hole"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.78.82 (talk) 19:18, 12 September 2012 (UTC)


 * You'll need to be a bit more specific about what you're asking. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:22, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Operation Door Knock
I recently viewed a three part documentary on YouTube called The Hunt For Britain's Paedophiles. The documentary follows Scotland Yard's long, exhausting two year execution of "Operation Door Knock", which took place during the same time as Ore. So, for the improvement of this article and for my own piece of mind, I'm wondering if the two operations directly related? - Mdriver1981 (talk) 01:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Not that I know if. Anyone else?

I watched both documentaries. Judging from the computer equipment, Operation Door Knock was on definitely earlier than Operation Ore. --217.248.124.23 (talk) 16:41, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Operation Ore. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081008004049/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article539974.ece to http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article539974.ece

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 22:39, 18 October 2015 (UTC)