User talk:Robertogreen

March 2009
This is your only warning. The next time you violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy by inserting unsourced defamatory content into an article or any other Wikipedia page, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia.  Sandstein  06:30, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

November 2010
You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for abuse of editing privileges, as you did at Jill Greenberg. If you would like to be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding below this notice the text, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first.  Sandstein  20:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello, this is in reply to your e-mail. This is a more detailed explanation why you are blocked:

Wikipedia policy strictly forbids you from writing anything that reflects negatively on living persons, unless you provide at the same time, in the form of a footnote in the text, a reference to a reliable published source that directly supports what you add to the text. This is explained in great detail in the policy page WP:BLP, about which you have been warned above and which you should have read. You violated that policy by making this change, in which you write among other things:
 * "For example, [name of living person] called his current wife a cunt in front of reporters, and he had cheated on his first wife after she had waited for him and raised his children, once he returned stateside and realized how she had been disfigured in a car accident."

This sort of allegation with respect to a living person may be included in a Wikipedia article, if at all – I do not see how it is at all relevant in an article that is not about that person – only if it is at the same time accompanied by a citation of a reliable published source that supports that allegation.

It is insufficient, for our purposes here, that you believe that this allegation is true, or that you are in possession of documents that you believe prove that it is true. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. This means that for you to be allowed to write something negative about another living person, it must not only be true, but you must also immediately enable readers to verify it for themselves by indicating the published reliable source in which readers can look up whether what you write is indeed true.

Please also understand that Wikipedia may not take anybody's side in disputes such as the one you wrote about. This is explained at our policy page WP:NPOV. Our purpose is to write a neutral, verifiable encyclopedia. That has absolute priority. This means that we will not carry content that, even though possibly true, is not neutral and verifiable. If you do not convince us that you share these goals and inted to contribute to Wikipedia in this spirit, you will remain blocked.  Sandstein  07:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * "We are going to"? Accounts are for one person as stated above. Before you upload a copyright image (if you are unblocked), look at WP:COPYVIO to see what is involved with releasing copyright. I an a little concerned, under the circumstances, with your username containing 'green' - this may be coincidence but could indicate a conflict of interest somewhere down the line... Peridon (talk) 16:00, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Blocking admin's comment: Issues related to images and copyright are not relevant for the question of whether or not you should be unblocked. You are blocked because you inserted unsourced contentious material about living persons in an article, in violation of our relevant policy, as explained above. Your unblock request does not address this, let alone convince me that you understand the policy and will abide by it if you are unblocked. Also, if you are an article subject's husband, you have a conflict of interest with respect to that article and should not edit it; and if making such edits is your only purpose here, you should not be unblocked.  Sandstein  17:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

i said quite clearly that i understand the issues that were raised, that things need to sourced in way that meets the community's standards of verifiability. as the page had sat for over two years with unverified defamatory information about greenberg i am very appreciative that now it is being watched so closely, and i pledge to adhere to said standards. i will also say that the specific accusation that sandstein made, that i had added unverifiable information, is false: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/81588/ is an example (and one i should have added myself at the time had i better understood the terms of use, a fault of no one but mine) is one of thousands of supporting  references. as for the copyright issue--are you telling me that my wife doesn't know or understand copyright? i'm confused. she can't have her own work uploaded to wikipedia despite having registered her copyright, right? but she has. she has undisputed ownership of all of her work (with limited exceptions, and i'm happy to have a long conversation about copyright with you at any time). so again, you are saying that my wife DOESN'T own her copyright? how is one supposed to prove this to your satisfaction? overall i'm at a loss here-i have stated unequivacally that i accept and will abide by all the terms of wikipedia. so, again, I will happily do so and won't make the same mistake, which i admit was entirely my fault. i take seriously the terms of use here, and though i do feel aggrieved insofar as they seem to have been selectively applied, i can get over that (and myself) and move on. so again, may i be unblocked please.
 * Please sign posts with ~ - that puts name and date on in one go. No, we aren't saying that your wife doesn't own the copyright. We are saying that the problem is that she DOES. You both will understand copyright as it applies in the commercial world, where things are paid for. This is different. Everyone who contributes to Wikipedia actually has a copyright on their contributions. I have a copyright on this statement, but by clicking 'Save page' I release the use of the material I create or upload to Wikipedia. This statement can be freely used by anyone, anywhere in the world so long as it is attributed to Wikipedia as a source. There are outfits that publish hard copy selections from Wikipedia - and sell them. So long as the attribution to Wikipedia as the original source is there, this is quite legal. (Can't see why anyone would buy them, but people can be strange...) If people upload pictures to Wikimedia Commons, they are also releasing the use of the pictures in the same way. I travelled to Halsall and took a picture of the Halsall Navvy, to upload it here. (Someone beat me to it.) That picture would still have been mine, but it could have been used anywhere. Read WP:COPYVIO - it isn't only about violations of copyright, but tells you in more and better detail about things like copyright release and fair use (which is for things like a photo or scan of an album cover, where there is no chance of an independent image being obtainable). The Halsall Navvy is a sculpture, and is obviously copyright to the sculptor in terms of making loads of copies of it for people's gardens. A photo of it is copyright to the photographer. I say again, read WP:COPYVIO. Peridon (talk) 09:40, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * By the way, blogs and forums are not generally regarded as reliable sources here. There are some exceptions for bloggers who are notable enough to have articles on Wikipedia, but they are not taken as reliable concerning the person concerned. The notable Ruritanian art critic Jan Dismas Krupoff may write in the national press, and his writing there is regarded as reliable. If he also has a blog that is certainly his, his comments there about the Borogrovian painter Igor Sandusky are usually considered reliable (at least until the hearing into his sanity is concluded...). His remarks about himself are not. Peridon (talk) 09:49, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

alternet is not a blog, it's a professional news organization. i am aware of all internet traditions--here i'm quoting noted right wing publisher and blogger gerard van der leun in the style of the great Sadly! No, a quite brilliant blog. which makes it different than alternet. which was in turn quoting rolling stone magazine, in an article by matt taibbi, A REPORTER, who was quoting OTHER REPORTERS in the Arizona Republic, a newspaper. which is not a blog. look, i sent my first e-mail on a vax system at UMass in 1980 or so. i was a usenet regular. i used nazi as an insult before Godwin's law was a mote in Godwin's eye. the mistake i made was not slander against mccain, nor was it libel, nor was it even saying something that was not verifiable. it was failing to follow the rules and regulations of this particular slice of the web. this difference between a thing being verifiable and a thing being verified is actually quite large. i was guilty of posting and doing the latter, not the former, despite sandstein's accusation. every statement that was on the page was more than verifiable by the standards and practices of wikipedia. the fact that sandstein seems to continue not to care about that, nor to care that i have averred emphatically that i both understand and pledge to follow all rules here regarding posting and updating and yet he hasn't changed his stance at all...look, he made a specific claim. i have refuted it quite clearly. i have stated that i get it. and i get it. and yet i'm not unblocked. i'm starting to think that perhaps there is an ad hominem component to sandstein's complaint about me (and more so about jill). perhaps something having to do with a particular set of political beliefs. that's what the evidence seems to be pointing towards. as for copyright, yes, jill, who owns a rather large amount of copyrighted material and whose level of expertise on use and release thereof far outstrips yours (or mine) wants to see her particular photo and is willing to allow the commons usage as defined here. so...one more time, please unblock me, and i appreciate your taking the time to consider this, peridon.