User:B. Wolterding/AGF Challenge Exercise Answers


 * Dear Filll,
 * your questions seem somewhat suggestive at times, and I cannot help the impression that, beyond providing discussion material, you are trying to make a specific point. (I'm however not saying you're disrupting Wikipedia in order to do so). Nevertheless, the problems are very interesting, so let me provide my answers below - maybe we even agree on one or more points made. --B. Wolterding (talk) 08:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Many claim that there is a group of editors at Wikipedia who make bad decisions or act in a rude and unethical fashion. It is alleged that these Wikipedia editors use the wrong approaches, and that they must change.

In particular, the charge is frequently levelled that too many established editors on Wikipedia are unfair, and are unCIVIL, and do too much BITEing and if they would just AGF more, everything would be ok. There is a lot of advice given, and there are a lot of complaints.

This set of exercises is based on  typical Wikipedia editing situations in controversial areas. Decide how you think that Wikipedia editors should handle each of these.

Note: Although all of these are inspired by real situations, the details of some of them have been altered slightly to obscure the identities of those involved

My wife is not a coauthor
Suppose someone has coauthored 10 books with their wife. And suppose that this person also wrote 10 books on their own, and on this second group of 10 books, their wife is not listed as a coauthor. All 20 of these books are listed on a website belonging to the couple for sale, and on various other websites, with the authorship list for each book listing either the person, or the person and his wife. All of these websites and descriptions of these 20 books agree with each other. Suppose that in interviews, this person is quoted as saying that his wife had coauthored some of his books, and that this person listed this coauthorship in his autobiography.

Therefore, in the biography of this person on Wikipedia, we state that this person has coauthored some of his books with his wife. And then this person contacts WP, using the OTRS system, and threatens to sue Wikipedia for describing his wife as a coauthor of some of his books. He wants Wikipedia to assert that he wrote all the books himself and his wife was not involved.

What should Wikipedia do? Do we just state something that is contrary to more than a dozen reliable sources, which all agree with each other? Do we state something for which we have not a single source except a private email purportedly from the subject of the biography (but of course we do not know for sure)? What is the ethical thing to do? What is the encyclopedic thing to do? What precedent would your actions set, if any?

Answer
Unfortunately, the statement of the problem does not give all details of the case. Let me explore certain alternatives.

a) His wife is explicitly recognized as a coauthor by the publisher. (That is, her name appears on the book cover.) In this case, she is a coauthor beyond reasonable doubt - scientific citation style would always demand to acknowledge her contribution. I don't see anything that could be wrong with listing her as such; and any legal proceeding against that seems pointless (but I'm not a lawyer). The statement should be precise of course: "Works of John Doe: Books 1-10, together with Jane Doe; Books 11-20, sole author".

b) His wife is not explicitly recognized as a coauthor, but reliable sources report her as such. In this case, one should have a close look at the sources. Where exactly was this statement published? Can we trust the source? Does the source typically fact-check their statements, and take responsibility for them? If it's say a major national newspaper, we should repeat precisely the fact that they stated: "The New York Times reported that Jane Doe coauthored Books 1-10", plus explicit citation of the newspaper article. I would be more careful however with bookseller's sites, advertisement blurbs, and anything that could be seen as self-published, since fact-checking does not usually occur here. Whether his autobiography is reliable depends a bit on how it is published. If it was distributed in book form by a major publishing house, I would count it as reliable, but not if it's present only on his web site - he might change it at any time. (Although the OTRS volunteer might well point him to the discrepancy.)

c) Sources are not reliable enough (as per the above). In this case, I would advocate not to include the fact of coauthorship in the article, nor explicitly claim the contrary. In the end, it is a minor fact in the biography, and I do not think that Wikipedia should start warring on controversial details if the situation is unclear.

My town's library
You run across an article, created a few days ago, that reads:

You do some web searching, and find nothing about this library on the internet. What should Wikipedia do with such an article? How would you handle this situation?

Answer
Short answer: The article should be proposed for deletion. A note should be left on the author's talk page.

Rationale: The article has many issues. The most prominent are:
 * No reliable sources are given.
 * The notability of the topic is not established, actually not even asserted.
 * The article contains personal comments ("A controversial move indeed" etc.)
 * It contains unsourced statements about living people ("Lucy Keene...")
 * It contains many facts that are irrelevant to the topic ("Other smithville attractions...") or of little relevance (new wheelchair ramp).
 * I can't even help the impression that it might be a copyright violation, parts of it seem to be taken from an advertising brochure. (This seems hard to prove though.)

To deal with these, the article would need at least a complete rewrite (with the added problem that rewriting is quite hard without sources). Further, without independent sources added, it would be subject to removal due to lack of notability. For reasons of clarity and efficiency, I would go with the furthest-reaching option first: Propose the article for deletion per WP:PROD, on grounds of lacking notability (alternatively, CSD A7 might apply).

In addition, a note should be left on the author's talk page (apparently a newcomer), briefly explaining the problem and directing him to the usual help page, WP:FIRST.

I am the best
"Theobold Johnson III" is notable for having been involved in a football cheating scandal and also writes books about orchids, illustrated with beautiful pictures. Johnson has written several self-published books about orchids, and in their autobiographies and interviews he describes himself as "the greatest living orchid man" and "widely recognized by the academic world as the greatest orchid scholar in the world". Johnson refers to himself as "Dr. Johnson" or "Professor Johnson" frequently in print. Johnson also asserts in print that he is a professor in the Botany Department at the famous "Winthrop College" and has given his mailing address as "c/o Winthrop College" for many years. Johnson often writes that all other people studying orchids are morons and even all other botanists are stupid and vile disgusting fools who should be publicly flogged or worse.

In the course of writing a Wikipedia biography about Johnson, you start to uncover disturbing information. First, you are able to find a mention of a "Theobold Johnson III" on archived versions of the Winthrop College website from 1994-1997, but there is no mention of Johnson on earlier versions of the website, or later versions. A "T. Johnson, III" is listed as a visitor in the Computer Science Department of Winthrop College in the 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997 versions of the website, and a phone number is given. You contact the President's office at Winthrop College and the Dean of Science office at Winthrop College and ask if Johnson is or was a faculty member there. Receiving no reply, you ask a friend who knows the Dean personally to ask the Dean privately. The word comes back from your friend that he has talked to the Dean privately, and that Johnson is an embarassment and never had a faculty appointment at Winthrop College and just has his mail forwarded from Winthrop College due to some arrangement he made with someone in the Winthrop College mailroom 25 years previously. Johnson never was on the payroll of Winthrop College and never had an official position at Winthrop College and has not been on campus for 10 years or more. Johnson was listed for a few years on the telephone list and was a short term visitor, but this was just a courtesy and he was one of 3500 visitors a year who get this courtesy. The Dean's office then, thanks to the probing of your friend, issues a very carefully worded "official statement" about Johnson, stating he was never a faculty member at Winthrop College and inviting further inquiries to their Press Office, and sends you a copy.

You do some more checking, and find no evidence that Johnson has a PhD or any degree in botany or science whatsoever, at least from Liberty Washington University, as he claims. You do find a record at Liberty Washington Community College that Johnson obtained a bachelor's degree in history 30 years previously. You also find a report in the local newspaper that Johnson was expelled from Liberty Washington Community College for theft while he was an undergraduate, and then was readmitted and eventually graduated. You look at various lists and directories of prominent orchid scholars and find no mention of a Theobold Johnson in any edition of these directories. You also dig up 5 reviews of Johnson's books on orchids in various scholarly journals from different botanists and orchid scholars from Harvard and University of Pennsylvania and Yale. These reviews are uniformly poor, and state that Johnson is a charlatan and a fraud and his books are replete with errors and the worst possible nonsense. You then find another interview of Johnson published in Sports Illustrated where it is stated that Johnson has no PhD or other Doctorate, but it is a title that people use for him out of respect for his tremendous knowledge and learning.

How would you write a biography of this person on Wikipedia? What would be reasonable and accurate and ethical? What would be fair? What should Wikipedia do if this person contacts Wikipedia and demands that it write his biography the way he dictates? What if this person threatens legal action if Wikipedia does not do what he asks?

Answer
Short answer: I would restrict the article to a summary of select substantial independent sources. If such sources do not exist, I would not create the article.

Rationale: Even more than the average article, biographies of living people must be strictly attributable to reliable sources. To achieve a neutral point of view, these should be independent of the subject. I would therefore look for a small set of decent sources, which cover his biography and are truly reliable (major mainstream newspapers, for example). Interviews with him might be doubtful here for reasons of independence. The article should then be created as a summary of these biographical sources and not go beyond them.

In particular, the article should not contain anything learned in communication with Winthrop college; one should even be cautious as to analysing scientific reviews of his books. This may be considered original research or at least original synthesis of material, which is prohibited by policy. These Wikipedia policies must be adhered to strictly in this case, all the more because the results of this research are serious allegations against T.J. (Note here that abuse of academic titles is a punishable crime in some jurisdictions.) It is not the purpose of Wikipedia to publish such research. This might be a good story for a journalist; and once he has published his results in a reliable source, they might become part of the Wikipedia article, with proper attribution.

In case of doubt, in particular if no decent sources about his biography can be found, no biographical article should be created. Not describing him is, by all means, fair and ethical, and also complies with the neutral point of view principle. Wikipedia is not supposed to be complete; in fact, with current inclusion criteria, there are millions and millions of notable people who have not (yet?) received a biography on Wikipedia. Let T.J. stay among these until independent biographies are published about him, for the better or worse.

Additional answer: It should not have an impact in this case what the subject of the article demands; although, of course, decisions should be very carefully taken in the presence of legal threats. Coverage should pertain to facts attributable to truly independent and reliable sources. If sources are thin, the option "no biography" should be viable also from a legal point of view; T.J. can hardly sue for inclusion in Wikipedia. (Again, I'm not a lawyer.)

Arrow of Time
In the Young Earth Creationism article, an editor with a total of 47 edits to their credit repeatedly inserts the phrase

This appears to have little if anything to do with Young Earth Creationism. After all, the Big Bang produced time itself, according to the Big Bang theory, first advanced by Belgian Roman Catholic priest Georges Lemaître. Discussions of whether time existed before the Big Bang have already discarded one of the main features of the Big Bang, and so are not about the Big Bang, and definitely not relevant to Young Earth Creationism, which does not have a Big Bang associated with most versions of it. It is a confused and somewhat nonsensical statement.

No sources or references are provided, although this editor is asked for sources dozens of times by several other editors. Other editors remove this phrase, and the new editor responds angrily that he is being censored. The new editor reinserts this phrase 38 times over the next 2 weeks, and never provides references or sources of any kind. When asked for sources, he states it is the responsibility of the other editors to provide them, not him.

On the talk page of the article, this editor posts vaguely obnoxious statements like

He states that since the other editors do not want to include his statement about the Arrow of Time without a reference, they will be sued:

Everyone is polite to this editor. No one threatens him. No one curses him. He is tolerated.

What should Wikipedia do in this case? What is fair? What is the journalistic thing to do? What is the encyclopedic thing to do? Could someone like this demand that Encyclopedia Britannica include this kind of statement in one of its articles? The New York Times? What sort of chance of success would they have?

Answer
Short answer: The editor engages in disruptive editing. He should be warned and, if necessary, blocked.

Detailed answer: I regard the last question as a rhetorical one - obviously, neither the New York Times nor the Encyclopedia Britannica would include such statement. The same should apply to Wikipedia. Namely, content must be attributable to reliable sources, particularly for disputed content. Since these do not seem to exist, or have at least not been presented, the passage in question should not be included.

I do not wish to speculate about the intentions of the editor. In any case, he does not appear to make constructive edits, all the more because he repeatedly inserts his unsourced statements although others have objected. In this way, he engages in disruptive editing. If not already done, somebody should politely explain the situation to him on his talk page, pointing him to Wikipedia policy such as WP:3RR, which he must have broken during those 14 days. If he continues his behaviour, further measures up to a block or even community ban could be taken.

As for the threats with legal action: In principle, editors can be blocked indefinitely if they threaten to take legal actions. From the statement above, however, I do not see a concrete threat against others. The editor should politely be pointed to WP:LEGAL, making clear that contributing to Wikipedia and taking legal action against it are mutually exclusive. Further, while editors should be cautious not to violate any applicable laws, there seems to be no reasonable legal problem here. (Once again, I'm not a lawyer.)

Ghost in the machine
Some people have decided that sometimes ghosts call humans using cellular telephones (i.e., mobile phones). Strange anonymous cell phone calls are said to be caused by phantoms and spirits trying to communicate with the living. Ringing cellular phones during inopportune moments are believed to be caused by mischievous spirits playing tricks on humans. Static during cellular telephone calls is said to be the voices of those from beyond the grave, that can be heard if you listen closely enough. Crosstalk between calls and other phenomena are said to be the results of spectral beings and supernatural influences. Cats that get strange looks on their faces when cell phones ring, or run and hide, are said to able to hear the ghosts. It is claimed that sometimes cats look into the corners of empty rooms watching these phantoms that are present, and invisible to humans.

Several articles on this "Cellular Phantom Phenomenon" (CPP) are written for Wikipedia. Since there are no mainstream scientific studies of CPP, the editors demand that no negative material or mainstream material be presented in the Wikipedia articles on CPP, since there are no mainstream reliable sources. Conventional explanations for CPP and information about how cellular telephones work and the causes of crosstalk and static are dismissed by the proponents of CPP as WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. The proponents of CPP maintain that the conventional mainstream scientific explanation must be kept out of the articles on CPP, and refer to those trying to include them as "pseudoskeptics" and "not real scientists" and "close-minded". Efforts to try to balance the article lead to huge disputes about trying to distort WP:NPOV and make it WP:SPOV instead, which some claim is an abuse of the policies of Wikipedia.

What should these articles on CPP in Wikipedia look like? Does mainstream science have any place in these Wikipedia CPP articles? What should Wikipedia do in this case? Can the rules of WP:FRINGE be applied or is that inappropriate and unfair?

Answer
Short answer: Wikipedia should not have an article about the Cellular Phantom Phenomenon. The topic fails the notability criteria due to lack of independent sources.

Rationale: It is the very nature of this problem that the CPP is only discussed by a small number of people. No mainstream reliable sources exist. Technically, the CPP is original research, although one hesitates to use the word "research" here. All published sources (if any) have been written by those few people; those sources are, therefore, not independent of the subject (i.e. of the "creators" of the theory). The topic therefore fails the WP:N criterion.

One of the reasons for this WP:N principle is that, without independent sources, it is not possible to report on the subject from a neutral point of view. This is precisely the case here: Independent sources, if they were written, would probably shed a quite different light on the topic than the current version of the article does. However, the topic is so obscure that no reliable source has found it worthy of notice. It is then better not to have an article on the topic, not even an article about a fringe theory per WP:FRINGE.

Take me to your Leader Extraterrestrial Shape-shifting Reptile
David Icke is one of a suprisingly large group of people that believe that most of the world's leaders, from Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and George W. Bush to members of the British Royal Family, are blood drinking shapeshifting reptilian humanoids from the Alpha Draconis star system. A little investigation reveals that there are literally dozens of books and videos on this subject, including a number that purport to present "proof" of the truth of these claims. There are also thousands of websites on this subject matter and many many people who believe this to be completely true, and supported by immense bodies of incontrovertable and irrefutable evidence.

An editor appears on Wikipedia and wants to include a paragraph or two in the biographies of many politicians around the world alluding to the fact that these politicians are in fact secretly shape-shifting extraterrestrial lizards of some kind. This editor links to one or more of the sources that are claimed to provide "proof" for these allegations. This editor wants to include this material in several hundred Wikipedia biographies. This editor protests vehemently about any efforts to remove this material from Wikipedia articles. This editor angrily denounces Wikipedia as unfair and biased, and the removal of this material as evidence that Jimbo and Arbcomm and many of the admins on Wikipedia are also shapeshifting extraterrestrial reptiles, conspiring to keep this information secret and from the public.

What should Wikipedia do in this case? What would be fair and reasonable? Should Wikipedia allow these claims only in the biographies of politicians and leaders that are already deceased, to avoid problems with WP:BLP? What is the best course of action, and most journalistic and encyclopedic and ethical? How does one avoid offending this editor? What if this editor is joined by 50 others with the same agenda so they can overwhelm any minor response by Wikipedia editors? What sort of precedent would this set? Are the rules of Wikipedia important in this situation or not? Should they be ignored? Whose rules should be applied and when, to which cases?

Answer
Policy-wise, this boils down to a question of reliability of sources, and about giving undue weight to minority views. Since from the problem description, not much can be said about the alleged sources - except that web sites are often unreliable - let me give some arguments in general.

My general opinion (although this may currently not be the mainstream approach on Wikipedia) is that biographies should not be synthesized from a large number of sources, possibly with varied reliability. Rather, Wikipedia biographies should be based on selected, substantial, highly reliable, biographical sources. For these sources will typically cover the biography from a neutral point of view, and allow for creating a Wikipedia article of the same quality - this being a foundation issue. Also, they will not give undue weight to minor aspects or minority views. Such sources will exist in abundance for Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and George W. Bush, and will (most probably!) not make reference to extraterrestrial beings. Anything beyond these selected sources should only be included if it is uncontroversial. As is apparent, the conspiracy theories above do not fall under "uncontroversial".

I do not think that a distinction should be made here between the living and the deceased. The distinction between WP:BLP and general biographies is a legal one, not an encyclopedic or ethical one. For reasons of encyclopedic treatment, as well as ethics, the above principles should be applied to all biographies.

Yes, the rules of Wikipedia are important in this case, in particular WP:V and WP:UNDUE. But for the case of biographies, one should be aware that not only Wikipedia's rules apply. There is at least an ethical requirement (if not a legal one) not to publish libellous content about uninvolved people. This is something that affects people outside Wikipedia, and in my opinion it can therefore not be governed by internal consensus alone. Including a noncritical article about extraterrestrial shape-shifting reptiles might damage Wikipedia's reputation. Including such reference in a biography, however, might damage the reputation of the subject. We should be aware of this, and strive to apply the highest possible standards to biographies, even if it means omitting some content.

In the decision-making process, the mere number of editors arguing in favour of the "lizard theory" should not play a role - first, because arguments should prevail; second, because meatpuppets can never be excluded.

Now how does one avoid offending this editor or those editors? One might point them to WP:V. Still, they will probably feel offended, and given their particular viewpoint that may even be unavoidable. (It might be their principle that everybody who disagrees is part of the conspiracy.) Perhaps we cannot help losing a contributor here.

Related to a saint
Oacan was an editor whose aunt compiled Oacan's family genealogical history in the 1950s. Oacan's aunt claimed that Oacan's family was descended from the brother of a well known 15th century saint. Oacan then altered the Wikipedia article about the 15th century saint drastically and aggressively, for over a year, to support the claim his aunt had made in the family genealogy. Oacan removed any discussion that was contrary to this claim of his aunt, and any sources that contradicted this claim. Oacan drove off several other contributors because he insisted on creating a biography that supported his aunt's claims and "altering" the Wikipedia articles to do so.

However, Oacan's aunt's genealogy was never published, or checked by a professional genealogist. It also appears to contradict several published reliable sources. In addition, Oacan's aunt's genealogy has gaps in it as long as 95 years.

In this case, what should Wikipedia do? What is fair to Oacan? What is fair to everyone else? Should Wikipedia go with the published material from reliable sources, even if it hurts this editor's feelings? What about the ethical issues? What would a good journalist do?

Answer
Short answer: Oacan's aunt's genealogy should not be reflected in Wikipedia articles.

Rationale: Wikipedia's content must be attributable to reliable sources. Oacan's aunt's genealogy is not such reliable source by the definition; it is at best self-published. Therefore Wikipedia's articles cannot rely on it, in particular when it contradicts other, more reliable sources. This is fair to everyone, since the decision is made by an objective, neutral criterion - and a reasonable criterion, since self-published sources typically do receive less fact-checking than e.g. scientific publications. It may be that this hurts the editor's feelings; if so, this seems unavoidable. (Besides, doing the contrary would hurt other editors' feelings, including mine.)

This solution is also ethical. Oacan is abusing his editing privilege (granted to him by the community) in order to keep others from editing (by constantly reverting their edits, and driving them off the article). It is ethically reasonable for the community to set limits on such behaviour.

What a good journalist would do may seem irrelevant here, since Wikipedia is not a place for journalism (although its articles may be sourced from newspapers).

I make my own rules
One editor who was fond of WP:FRINGE theories such as conspiracy theories and alien abduction theories, and edited articles on these topics on Wikipedia, decided that he disagreed with the standard interpretations of Wikipedia principles like WP:NOR and WP:RS and WP:NPOV. So he wrote his own versions of these policies. He altered all these standard policies to make them more friendly to WP:FRINGE topics, contrary to community consensus and rulings of Arbcomm, etc.

Then this editor proceeded to send out his own "welcoming statements" to new Wikipedia editors, with links to his nonstandard altered versions of Wikipedia policies, similar to the procedure normally followed for new Wikipedia editors.

What is appropriate in this case? Can someone decide unilaterally to design their own policy statements, contrary to those of the community? What is the ethical thing to do? What is the reasonable thing to do in this case?

Answer
Short answer: The user is gaming the system; his actions are not acceptable.

Detailed answer: Wikipedia internally builds on consensus. Consensus need not be identical to every editor's private opinion, and every editor is welcome to express his opinion in private essays, which can also be very favourable for discussing proposed changes to policy. However, these should be clearly identified as such. In using these for "private welcome messages", as indicated above, the user is gaming the system inasmuch as he tries to use the "welcoming process" for propagating his private view.

From an ethical standpoint, it seems to me that the user tries to fool newcomers, making them believe that his versions of policies are the official ones (although one should give a closer view to the self-made welcome messages, which are not given in detail above). In that, he is exploiting the lack of knowledge that newcomers typically have about Wikipedia policy. This is clearly unethical, and the community should strive to stop such behaviour.

From a practical standpoint, the following measures seem reasonable:
 * The private versions of policy should be moved to the editor's user space, and clearly marked as private opinions, if this has not already been done.
 * The user should be instructed to clearly distinguish his private opinion from official policy when referring or linking to it.
 * Posting private announcements to user pages in masses seems a clear case of canvassing. If the user continues with it, usual measures can be taken.