User talk:NickDranias

Welcome
- Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:05, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

WP:COI
I encourage you to read WP:COI involving articles here, this helps provide a neutral point of view when it comes to articles. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:05, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the information. Assuming Wiki wishes to minimize its liability to a cause of action for libel, this policy is clearly not applicable to completely accurate sourcing provided to address a libelous critique of a wiki page from a user. If it were, there would be no way for the subjects of wikis created involuntarily about them to correct libelous critiques. If there were not such ability, then Wiki would likely become jointly liable for publishing libelous statements because Wiki's own policy would preclude a remedy from the libel published on its site.
 * The remedy is normally to provide details of the incorrect information on the relevant talk page, along with a use of edit request. If the incorrect information is on a discussion page, and you seriously believe that it constitutes a personal attack or defamation, responding in the same discussion with a request that the comment be struck or even removed could be proper. But note that expressing an opinion on the notability of an article subject is not defamation, as it is an opinion, not an allegedly factual statement. DES (talk) 04:46, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

WP:ANI
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:09, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

February 2014
Your recent edits could give Wikipedia contributors the impression that you may consider legal or other "off-wiki" action against them, or against Wikipedia itself. Please note that making such threats on Wikipedia is strictly prohibited under Wikipedia's policies on legal threats and civility. Users who make such threats may be blocked. If you have a dispute with the content of any page on Wikipedia, please follow the proper channels for dispute resolution. Please be sure to comment on content, not contributors, and where possible make specific suggestions for changes supported by reliable independent sources and focusing especially on verifiable errors of fact. Thank you. ''In this edit you made a clear legal threat. Further such threats may lead to blocking you from editing at Wikipedia without further warning.'' DES (talk) 04:29, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, it was not a threat. I was making a factual, constructional argument. Barring victims of defamation from remedying the defamation could create such liability, in my opinion. It is unreasonable to think that Wiki would have a policy that would expose it to litigation from defamation. Far from a threat of litigation, I was making it clear that litigation would be impossible with a reasonable interpretation of Wiki's policy.NickDranias (talk) 13:06, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps that was your intent, none the less statements phrased as you did can have a chilling effect, and so are prohibited here.
 * Wikipedia takes defamation quite seriously; see our policy on Biographies of living persons. Providing sources to counter incorrect (let alone defamatory) statements is perfectly acceptable. Editing an article so as to appear promotional (whether by intent or not) is not acceptable. (By the way, "Wiki" is a class of software (much like "blog") of which Wikipedia is only one example. Individual items on Wikipedia are usually referred to as "articles" or "pages".) DES (talk) 13:31, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Here is an important part of the Wiki COI policy folks have not considered yet: "An exception to editing an article about yourself or someone you know is made if the article contains defamation or a serious error that needs to be corrected quickly." It seems Wiki DOES agree with my legal analysis after all. No threat needed. That is precisely what I did by adding sourcing and specifics to rebut James Cage's original false critique that I only self-published and he could not find any significant hits on google. I suppose someone could claim that Cage's false critique was not part of the article, but the problem with that argument is that, according to my colleague, the article was flagged with that critique, which obviously incorporates it into the substance of the article. I see now that I am supposed to email people when I make those edits, but I don't know how to email yet and when I figure it out, I will

Articles for deletion/Nick Dranias and notability
You should be aware that notability on Wikipedia is a term of art. To say that a person is not notable is not to say that the person is unimportant or that the person's work is not worthwhile or of high quality. It merely means that the person or the work has not drawn the kind of attention that makes it a suitable subject for an encyclopedia article. See our guideline for notability of people and the various other guidelines linked there for more details. DES (talk) 04:39, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

You should also be aware that any page that tends to serve as an advertisement (in a very broad sense) or a piece of advocacy for a person, organization, or cause, however worthy, is strongly disfavored on Wikipedia. See our guideline on promotional pages, our guideline on conflict of interest, and our guideline on autobiographies. If the tone of a page is seen as promotional, it is likely to be deleted for that reason alone, even if ever statement in it is factual. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be written from a neutral point of view.

All this is a bit different from many other publications, and our many-editor system can also confuse and frustrate people. But if you work with us, things do tend to go better, in my experience. DES (talk) 04:39, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I am fine with debating the finer points of notability. I did not ask for this wiki page. I did not update it until Friday. What concerned me was the original false BASIS for claiming non-notability. It concerned me only because it concerned a colleague who saw the false claim in another state and contacted me. Had the post simply been deleted, I would never have known or cared. But to have it be deleted on false pretenses, would and still could be damaging to my reputation. The original false basis for claiming non-notability consisted of an assertion by a now non-existent user (he apparently deleted his account between Friday and today) that I only ever self-published and that he googled my name and only 50 hits appeared. These are and were demonstrably false. To protect my reputation, I had no choice but to respond with factual sourcing showing the falsity of the basis of the critique. I am perfectly willing to engage in dispute resolution with this user, if he can be found. But I hope you won't blame the victim for protecting himself!NickDranias (talk) 13:12, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I suspect you refer to this edit. If so, note that did not say you had only written self-published works, he said " All references self-published." meaning that all the cited sources came from you or from organizations with which you were closely associated, with no significant editorial control. As of that edit, all 6 cited sources were from pages of the http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org site. He also said that he found 50 Google hits, but in his view none were better sources to support the article. That is, of course, an opinion, one that might be disagreed with or rebutted, but it is not defamation. DES (talk) 13:41, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * - The number 50 referred to hits on ProQuest, not on Google. I occasionally use ProQuest because it filters out self-published sources, and reaches older articles with full text that are not always available on Google. In any case, that was a comment made in the PROD tag, which was deleted. The multiple accusations of "false and defamatory" statements were made after that tag (and the comment) were removed. The real definition of defamation includes an intent to cause harm (see []. Here and on other pages, the editor claiming to be a lawyer is making the case that I defamed him. He has lately modified this to imply that I may have defamed him with pure intent, which is of course not possible. If the editor is actually the subject of the article, he knows that, but repeats the accusation to non-lawyers - something that could reasonably be seen as an attempt to intimidate. James Cage (talk) 15:12, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * DES I appreciate the engagement, but the legal definition of defamation is "the action of damaging the good reputation of someone." Whatever the technical understanding among wiki users of the term "self-published," in my field it has a very specific meaning: A weird guy living with his mom spending $10,000 to get a printer to publish a few hundred books. Well, maybe that's the connotation. The meaning is that you are not published by a third party with publication standards. I don't believe James Cage really googled me or checked those links because if he did, he would literally find thousands of hits and possibly hundreds of publications. In any event, I received a concerned email from a colleague who saw it and thought it damaged or if not corrected would damage my reputation. I think my actions fall within the COI exception for defamation. Now I have to figure out how to tell the administrator I wrote on the administration pageNickDranias (talk) 13:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I of course have no way to know whether performed a Google search or not, or if he did but stopped after the first few pages of results. I do point out that even in a strictly legal sense, an expression of opinion is never defamation, as many court cases have held, you are doubtless even more aware of this than I am -- I am not a lawyer but have an interest in law in general and First-Amendment law in particular, and have contributed to several Wikipedia articles on the topic. "I think John Doe would be a poor President" may harm Doe's reputation, but it is not defamation.
 * In any case what he said was that the references were self-published, and at the time he wrote that, this was correct. He may well have been incorrect that better references could not be found, but that is a different issue. as to "self-published" see our guideline on self published sources, which says in part ...self-published media, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), Internet forum postings, and tweets, are largely not acceptable as sources. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter... Note also that in theses days of print-on-demand and digital publishing, many people do self-publish, and it does not always have the connotation you suggest. Even such a major author as Stephen King self-published his novel The Green Mile, at least when it was first released.
 * But let it stand that you feared your online reputation was threatened. You have now taken action to bring what you think are relevant facts to light. But you cannot control how Wikipedia describes you (if it describes you at all). Within billions of people on the planet, Wikipedia does not have an article on even 1 person in 1,000. And as a practical matter, seeming overly confrontational in Wikipedia talk page discussions and particularly in article deletion discussions is often counter-productive, and can prejudice people against the views of the person perceived as combative. This is not always just, but you must know that politics and human interactions is often largely about perception. DES (talk) 14:56, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Please do not write or add to an article about yourself. Creating an autobiography is strongly discouraged – see our guideline on writing autobiographies. If you create such an article, it may be deleted. If what you have done in life is genuinely notable and can be verified according to our policy for articles about living people, someone else will probably create an article about you sooner or later (see Wikipedians with articles). If you wish to add to an existing article about yourself, please propose the changes on its talk page. Please understand that this is an encyclopedia and not a personal web space or social networking site. If your article has already been deleted, please see: Why was my page deleted?, and if you feel the deletion was an error, please discuss it with the deleting administrator. Thank you. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:51, 3 February 2014 (UTC)