User talk:Jæs/Archives/2012/December

Justin Trudeau
I just wanted to say thanks for your work on this article, to make it adhere to core policies. Some people get intimidated when an administrator confronts them, and it's a very good thing that you didn't. Best wishes, Paul Erik  (talk) (contribs) 00:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I appreciate that, I genuinely do. It can be (really) challenging sometimes trying to maintain the reliability and neutrality of many biographies, especially when there are folks that want their point-of-view stamped on an article.  I try to just stick to the facts as per the sources, and go wherever that leads.  But, sincerely, thank you for the affirmation.  jæs (talk)  01:30, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

So long, and thanks for all the fish.
I have only edited off and on for the past while. Barely two weeks ago, I noticed some questionable edits to a biography of a living person. It turned out there was an administrator who was using multiple socks to (among other things) introduce non-neutral material into that biography (and perhaps others) and then effectively stamp the biased content with his main administrator account's seal of approval. He confessed when he believed his ruse was close to up and subsequently received a barnstar and a number of commendations for being "honest."

A few days later, I noticed a posting on the biographies noticeboard by a professor who expressed concern that her biography was being edited by a colleague with a conflict of interest and less concern than he ought to have for the neutrality of that article. That editor, coincidentally, began editing Wikipedia as an admitted sockpuppet or meatpuppet (not entirely clear, frankly) to disrupt an article and a deletion debate regarding that article. Sure enough, when trying to work with him on the content of the professor's biography — which I had never read, let alone edited before it was raised at the noticeboard — it became clear that his tactics were nothing short of tendentious and that his interest in the article was quite patently to use it as a coatrack. Because his tactics are more subtle than some, he's managed to go about his tendentious editing with but three blocks and only a handful of warnings for his disruptive blp editing and editwarring in the past.

I think Wikipedia is an incredible resource. But just as this essay points out, there are folks here who have interests that fundamentally diverge from those of this project. They are either unwilling or unable to put their personal interests or beliefs aside when editing — or, perhaps even more disturbingly, are actively editing to further their personal interests or beliefs. We have a critical responsibility to living persons to ensure their biographies are neutral, verifiable, and fair. Yet I have watched the number of editors who are actively involved in biographies at the relevant noticeboard dwindle to but a few as more and more administrators and editors have faced the often withering determination of disruptive editors both subtle and more obvious.

I wish the project the best, and I sincerely hope wp:blp is eventually given enforcement mechanisms that work — if not every time, then at least more often than not. Until then, I sincerely sympathise with any living person notable enough to have a Wikipedia biography. jæs (talk) 07:28, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Who is this administrator that you're on about? Nomo is not an admin. I think you need to amend that statement if you're talking about Nomo.  Toddst1 (talk) 15:29, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks to me like the administrator in question was User:CharlieEchoTango. That incident had nothing to do (other than timing) with the situation at Caroline Hoxby. I, as an administrator with no previous involvement with the Caroline Hoxby article, looked at the history there and saw no wrongdoing on Nomo's part. Yes, there were some mistakes, some differences of opinion, and some accusations of self-serving behavior, but no wrongdoing requiring administrator intervention.
 * I sincerely hope that Jæs will return and resume the fine work done in the past with BLPs and other topics. --Orlady (talk) 16:22, 10 December 2012 (UTC)