Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of whistleblowers


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was speedy keep per WP:SK. Nomination withdrawn with no outstanding delete votes. (non-admin closure) • Gene93k (talk) 01:44, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

List of whistleblowers

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Withdrawn by Nominator I stand by the reasoning below, and believe that most of the dissent has not addressed the issues I've raised. But its clear this is going nowhere.

I suppose this will stir up a lot of controversy, but I believe that this article violates WP:NPOV by its very existence, and there is no way to edit it to bring it into compliance.

1) Wikipedia is not a directory WP:NOTDIR

2) As a "whistleblower" is someone who reveals hidden illegal or immoral activity by an organization to authorities, it will be in most cases (those in which there is no conviction by a competent court, thus demonstrating illegality) be necessary for the editor to make a moral judgment as to whether the organization's activity was immoral. In the act of making this judgment and placing the person's name on the list, NPOV is violated.  Per the NPOV policy,


 * "Wikipedia describes disputes. Wikipedia does not engage in disputes. A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently impartial tone".

In practice, as one might expect under these circumstances, the entire article is a list of "heros" who exposed organizational behaviors that one editor or another found repugnant. One might argue that if the list was limited to those whose disclosures led to criminal convictions, one could cite the court's decision as evidence that the allegations were correct and that the organization had acted illegally. But this would exclude many people that most of us would consider whistleblowers. And if criminal convictions arising from the disclosure are used to determine that the discloser was a true whistleblower, how does one handle the cases in which the "whistleblower" him/herself was convicted of violating confidentiality agreements, national security laws, etc.

In short, how to we decide if someone is a whistleblower without making a moral judgment? And if individual editors make moral judgments, we are flying in the face of NPOV. We describe disputes, we don't take sides in them. Respectfully, Formerly 98 (talk) 19:26, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


 * can you please explain why you believe this article violates WP:NOTDIR? Identifying which of the six numbered items in that policy section, that this list article violates would be a good start. Additionally, please explain why this particular list is different than any other in that regard. As for your second point, we identify individuals for inclusion on the list just as we do all other content - by summarizing sources. Since sources exist that are both reliable and identify individuals as "whistleblowers", Wikipedia is operating within its own policies to identify those individuals as such. I did attempt to formalize some inclusion criteria a couple of years back for this article, which technically reached closure but the consensus we not very strong. In summary, since your your nomination you have not presented any reasoning that should drive a decision to delete this article, my opinion is Strong keep. VQuakr (talk) 19:44, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep. We follow reliable sources in deciding who is or is not a whistleblower, not what any individual editor considers to be a whistleblower. If there are no WP:RS stating that a subject is a whistleblower, then he or she doesn't belong on the list. I see no policy-based reason for deleting the list. --NSH001 (talk) 20:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Note added in response to comments below, and to expand and clarify my point:OK, I figured this one would not be popular. Let me try some examples. Maybe these will allow us to understand each other's position on whether, as I have proposed, this is an intrinsically non-NPOV article. Would you object, and on what basis, if I added the following persons to the whistleblower list?


 * A) Senator Jame Inofe, for disclosing a video which "reveals a top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official, Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz, admitting that EPA's "general philosophy" is to "crucify" and "make examples" of oil and gas companies.". The administrator was subsequently forced to resign." (Fox News)


 * B) The hacker who released emails from climate scientists at the University of Anglia in which "scientists appear to urge each other to present a "unified" view on the theory of man-made climate change while discussing the importance of the "common cause"; to advise each other on how to smooth over data so as not to compromise the favored hypothesis; to discuss ways to keep opposing views out of leading journals; and to give tips on how to "hide the decline" of temperature in certain inconvenient data." (WSJ)


 * I scratched the reference to WP:Directory, on further review I believe I misunderstood it.
 * Thanks Formerly 98 (talk) 22:32, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I would ask if the reliable sources identify either of those two individuals as "whistleblowers." That would be a discussion for the article talk page though, not AfD. Generally, you seem to misunderstand the way in which deletion is used on Wikipedia. There is no requirement to delete a list because the selection or exclusion of its content may be difficult. See WP:SURMOUNTABLE, WP:DINC, and WP:BATHWATER for related essays. VQuakr (talk) 23:27, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Respectfully, I don't think I've "misunderstood the process", and I don't think the problem is that "selection or exclusion of the content is difficult". The point I'm trying to argue is that selection of the content is intrinsically a value judgment on the part of the editors, which goes against NPOV. And honestly, I think for about a third of the people currently on that list, you'd have a very difficult time finding a "reliable source" that describes them as whistleblowers.


 * If this where not a value-loaded and intensely political term, the Wikipedia article on True the Vote wouldn't have quotation marks around the word "whistleblower" when referring to Anita Moncrief.  The purpose of these quotation marks is clearly to give a nod to the idea that others have called her that, but that the editor of the article rejects the use of the term to describe her.Formerly 98 (talk) 00:04, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Respectfully, I don't think I've "misunderstood the process" Fair enough, I struck the comment above as it does, upon rereading, come off as patronizing which was not my goal. I apologize. The point I'm trying to argue is that selection of the content is intrinsically a value judgment on the part of the editors. No, we defer to reliable sources. I think for about a third of the people currently on that list, you'd have a very difficult time finding a "reliable source" that describes them as whistleblowers. Very possibly true, but as mentioned above not a reason to delete the entire article. From a practical standpoint, I just reviewed the actual entries in the list and most (not all) had reliable sources that explicitly identified the people as whistleblowers. Many have received Qui tam financial awards, which seems like a pretty quantitative bar to me. Your reasoning for deletion would only make sense to me if the inclusion criteria question were insurmountable, and I do not understand how you could possibly reach that conclusion in this case. VQuakr (talk) 00:47, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * OK, its clear this proposal is going nowhere, but just for my intellectual satisfaction: If the court granting a Qui tam award is an objective standard for calling these folks "whistleblowers", what about the cases where the "whistleblower" was convicted of violating national security laws and sent to jail for their disclosure? If the courts are final arbiters of who is a whistleblower, I would presume that these people would have to be removed. If I found the name of the person who betrayed Nelson Mandela, would his conviction by a South African court render the person who turned him in make him a whistleblower?  His advocacy of violence in the early years of his activism and during the early years of his imprisonment were clearly violations of South African law. What about the little girl who turned in her parents in Soviet Russia for criticizing Stalin?  They were duly convicted by a Soviet court and sent to the Gulag.


 * I recognize that I am resorting to reducto ad absurdum examples here, but I'm just trying to make the point that we aren't including people on that list just because the behavior they reported was illegal, but because it was "immoral". And immoral is an intrinsically value laden judgment.  You cannot have a "reliable source" for a value judgment, because values are not facts, they are just values.


 * I'll withdraw the proposal if I can figure out how to do it. But I'd appreciate hearing your response before I do so. Thank you for engaging in a respectful manner, and for your apology, which was not really necessary. Formerly 98 (talk) 01:06, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep For point #1, Wikipedia has tons of articles on subjects that are controversial. We can't just go around deleting everything that people have disagreements over. As for point number #2, the easy way around the problems raised is to require people to find reliable sources that call the figures listed whistleblowers. Just reflect what the sources state and nothing more and NPOV won't be a problem.Spirit of Eagle (talk) 01:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I understand this proposal is going nowhere, but your comment isn't responsive. As I've stated below, there are no "reliable sources" for value judgments.  And if you just want to include people because someone called them a whistleblower, then the title of the article should be "List of People that Have Been Called Whistleblowers".  Formerly 98 (talk) 01:26, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.