User talk:Dave Shishkoff

Unspecified source for Image:Capers_in_the_Churchyard.jpg
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Orphaned non-free media (Image:Capers in the Churchyard.jpg)
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Proposed deletion of Capers in the Churchyard (book)
A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Capers in the Churchyard (book), suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the  notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

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Apologies
Hi, Dave - sorry if we got off on the wrong foot re. the Template_talk:Animal_liberation discussion. I'm sorry, I hadn't looked at your user page or contributions prior to writing.

Transparent affiliations are not necessary in Wiki, nor are they particularly desireable. Even though you and your talk page say you are Dave, you could be a 45 year old woman in New Zealand. Everyone knows how screen-names online could be anyone. The whole Wiki concept is that anyone can edit and review past edits by all editors. One's affiliation, education, knowledge, etc. fall somewhat into the category of original research WP:OR. I suspect that you know far more about animal rights than I do since I got involved in editing that project out of interest not knowledge. I find that I learn a great deal about editing and the less I know about a topic, the more I learn. Each time there is a change, if I am unsure of the information, I check the cited reference. Reading these original sources really aids understanding. Quite often, editors misquote or misinterpret references, so I find that I sometimes make corrections, or correct text to agree with the reference. Sometimes, I think something is wrong in an article, so I look up new references to see if they support what I think. If an editor makes an obscene or racially motivated edit, I will go to their contribution page to see what else they've been up to, either reverting other vandal edits or report them to administrators.

Part of the problem of having a lot of knowledge about a topic is that some of it may be POV or may even be wrong. Working for an organization and editing to solely promote that organization is a conflict of interest. See WP:COI. For example, I was reading the egg (food) page when a member of the Egg marketing Board joined in and started editing. While much of the information that he/she posted was good, it totally overlooked anything at all critical of eggs - for example, he never mentioned cholesterol content or other possibly negative aspects of eggs, so even though what he was adding was well-intentioned and valuable it was POV, but by ommission. The People Eating Tasty Animals page has been edited almost entirely by Mike Doherty who owned that domain and fought PETA over it. I asked him about conflict of interest, and he pointed out his edits, which were quite neutral, so it did not seem that he was promoting his POV, simply adding referenced info.

On the other hand, when I looked at your user contributions, the vast majority of your edits have been to pages of your colleagues or boss. This indicates that your interest in Wiki is not so much generally improving the content as adding content relevent to your job. While you may be an expert on the organization you work for, clearly you can understand that it appears to be a conflict of interest for you to only edit articles or topics related to your job. No one cares who corrects the spelling of a name or a minor edit like that, but if you are consistently adding content about your employer, that would definitley be COI.

Again, I didn't realize you were new to Wiki and the template talk page was not the right place to address this, but if you are interested in improving Wiki, I suggest that you broaden your interest to include other types of editing. If you care to reply, post your comment on my talk page. Cheers Bob98133 (talk) 14:31, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Bib98133,

It's interesting that you bring up 'conflict of interest'. I suspect that you are Bob Chorush, who works for PETA ( http://www.peta.org/MC/NewsItem.asp?id=9643 ). 98133 is a zip code for Seattle, which is where i understand he (Chorush) resides.

Your language is not dissimilar from what i've received in emails from him, and you seem to have more familiarity of me than you let on (you refer to my 'boss'?)

Interestingly, the name only appears on Wikipedia once, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foie_gras_controversy#cite_ref-14

This is a page you've edited heavily, and of the 58 references on this page, two do not link to another page, and this is one. I cannot figure out who added this particular reference, as the history seems to stop in early 2007 for this page..

Apologies for my suspicion if you are not Bob Chorush, but the similarities are difficult to ignore. Feel free to help me dispel them.Dave Shishkoff (talk) 21:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi, Dave - first off, it's easier if you respond on my talk page (by clicking the talk link on my signature). That way I get a notification that there is a message for me. No, I don't work for PETA and I don't live in Seattle and I don't want to discuss who I am or am not. I'm retired and I left that sort of nonsense behind with my job. One nice thing about Wiki is that everyone is assumed to be equal, including anonymous editors - it's the content and references that count, not who puts them up, with the exception of what I said above re WP:COI. I've made 5 or 6,000 edits in Wikipedia, so probably a bunch of them have been on this topic. If you find references that don't work, or the links are broken, or don't seem to relate to what they are supposed to be referencing, it's OK to delete them. In the edit summary just put - removed broken link. If the material it referenced then needs a reference, you can insert a fact tag where the ref was - like this . If no editor replaces the tag in a reasonable amount of time, the unreferenced statement can be removed. Bob98133 (talk) 21:38, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Bob, i'm not convinced. You call me out as being a conflict of interest, yet this could also be the same case with you, and i have reason to believe this true. (Would you not agree that it would be a serious issue if a PETA staff member were secretly one of the main operators of the PETA page?)

I'm afraid you will have to do more than this to convince me that you are not Bob Chorush. Of course, if you are Chorush, you would be expected to deny this accusation distract from this issue in an attempt to maintain your cover, right?

Would you not agree that it would be easy to abuse the power that comes with the privilege of being 'anonymous'? Would you not agree that it'd be controversial were Bob98133 to be a PETA employee? If you're not Chorush, i'm sure you'll appreciate my concern over this and the legitimacy and fairness of contributions from this user account.

I hope we can clear this up. Let me know if you can think of a way to alleviate my concerns. (The problem persists that i don't get alerted to updates on your talk page..so one of us will end up with the same problem, since it's already here, i propose we leave this discussion here.)Dave Shishkoff (talk) 22:29, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Guys, if is could offer a little advice here? I don't think this conversation is particularly healthy or constructive, in that it certainly skits around WP:AGF and flirts rather dangerously with privacy issues, perticularly WP:OUTING.


 * Dave is now aware of COI issues and he certainly isn't hiding his affiliations. While it may not be the best idea for him to create articles about his employers, as long as he is open and honest about his COI then its not too much of an issue.
 * Whether Bob98133 is or isn't this Bob Chorush is not going to resolved in this manner. He was asked, and he said that he isn't. That is good enough for me, personally, and unless there is a history of POV-pushing, its unlikely his privacy will be invaded to resolve it one way or the other. If you really believe there is a problem here there are venues where it can be raised. For example, Conflict of interest/Noticeboard is a good place to start. But honestly, the best advice for both of you is to comment on the contributions, rather than infer motivation or identity of the editor. Rockpock  e  t  01:57, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Rockpocket,

Apologies that it even has to be addressed, but it's unfortunate and unfair that i'm being accused of something which this person may very well be guilty of. (Perhaps an explanation for the unwarranted hostility. See projection. ;)

Bob98133, if you read the above correspondence, did not deny being one Bob Chorush...only working for PETA (today, at this moment, etc) and living in Seattle (maybe a suburb instead? What is the meaning of 98133 besides a Seattle zip code? The 13th of March, 1998?)

I'm not troubled if this happens to be Bob Chorush, as long as someone unaffiliated with PETA is keeping an eye on his AR-related contributions. What i'm troubled by is a personal attack from someone committing that very act. At the very least i'm offering transparency and honesty, and am open to critique.Dave Shishkoff (talk) 19:32, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There will always be people who take advantage of the anonymity of WP to exercise undue influence of articles they have a conflict of interest on. That is one of the problems with our policies on anonymity. If Bob98133's contributions to PETA are fine, then it doesn't really matter to me who he is. If his contributions are biased or POV-laden, then we can deal with that on the basis of the edits. Either way, his identity doesn't really matter, what matters is his contributions (of course, the same could - and should - be said of you).
 * We ask people to avoid possible COI's because it is very difficult to remain neutral when one has a personal or professional involvement, not because with assume they have bad intentions. One way to address this is to declare your COI, so others can oversee your work. Doing this shows honesty and integrity, and goes some way towards convincing others that your intentions are consistent with Wikipedia's goals.
 * There is a level of hypocrisy in having someone use your real identity to try to restrict you when they, themselves, are editing anonymously. I understand that. But now everyone knows where everyone else stands, its probably a good idea for everyone to chalk it up to experience and move on. Rockpock  e  t  20:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, i've said my peace, will leave it at that for now. Dave Shishkoff (talk) 20:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

HSUS
I would like to discuss the removal of the HSUS from Template:Animal liberation. You state that the organization is "animal welfare", despite that the HSUS article itself notes that the HSUS has become (over time) an animal rights organization. (Read the following sections: Rationale, Recent_history, and Criticism.) When I made the addition to this template, I also added the HSUS to the List of animal rights groups, citing a source. Although the template is named "Template:Animal liberation", and there is a slight distinction between "animal rights" and "animal liberation", the title of the template box reads "Animal Rights." For these reasons, I am reinstating the listing of the HSUS in this template. If you have sources that would contradict this, please share them. –Visionholder (talk) 18:36, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Visionholder,


 * HSUS has identified themselves as both, but if one looks at their actions, it's clearly not 'animal rights'. They are strong advocates of animal husbandry reform practices, which flies in the face of any rights-oriented activism, which would be to abolish their exploitation, not change the ways that they are exploited. (Thus reform vs abolition, and 'welfare' vs rights.) Rights reject reform, as reform does not equate, nor necessitate rights or abolition.


 * Visit their page on farm animals: - the very first thing it says is 'animal welfare'. All the campaigns (cage-free eggs, a different kind of veal, etc) is for reforming the industry. None of it is demanding that animals deserve to be left alone as Hall would put it, or not treated as property a la Francione. These campaigns maintain the property status of animals, which is what rights works to end.


 * This is further evidenced here: - HSUS is clearly more concerned about 'behavioral needs' than freedom.


 * What do you think? Dave Shishkoff (talk) 19:20, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

NOTE: I also copied this over to the AnimalLib:Talk page. Dave Shishkoff (talk) 19:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * In that case, I have replied there.


 * Dave, I'm a little annoyed with the discussion, so I'm just going to drop you a quick note here. As I stated in my reply to you, the HSUS can work towards animal rights goals by claiming to be animal welfare and applying legal pressure to systematically change the animal welfare laws in a way that ultimately promote animal rights.  (Example: Setting legal size requirements for elephant enclosures intentionally larger than any zoo can accommodate.)  It's just like how creationists can (and do) hide under the flag of "intelligent design" in the legal fights going on around the country.  Regardless, I had provided a reliable source: a published book, written by a veterinarian (an animal welfarist) and used in college classrooms.  Despite this, the source is being dismissed... and the manner in which it is being dismissed strongly implies an animal rights POV (by labeling the author as a "researcher and dairy farmer"--something that a animal welfarist wouldn't care about, but an animal rights person would).  Until people can start addressing this issue, it's pointless to debate on that page.  With that point of view, *any source*, even from a major newspaper or journal, could be dismissed by labeling the author as biased.  Basically, if anyone disagrees with what the HSUS claims, then they're biased and unreliable.  That is wrong on so many levels and clearly violates WP:NPOV.  –Visionholder (talk) 20:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * By the way... I do conceed one point: Adding the HSUS to the Animal Rights template (and possibly the list page) is not appropriate. At least, not until many more "reliable" sources surface about the HSUS's affiliations and actions.  I'm mostly concerned about the HSUS page itself now. –Visionholder (talk) 20:49, 4 September 2009 (UTC)