Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive58

Geoffrey Edelsten


Geoffrey Edelsten states that the Wikipedia article about him is highly defamatory and damaging. There are a number of defamatory and damaging statements. One in particular as followings; He subsequently spent a year in jail for hiring an underworld figure, Christopher Dale Flannery, to assault a former patient, and for perverting the course of justice.[5][6][7] Article found here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Edelsten - This media statement is greatly different than actual charges seen at http://www.geoffreyedelsten.com/the-australian-criminal-reports-1990-vol51.pdf - The charge was in fact “soliciting” not “hiring” – the use of “hiring” is defamatory, the fact can be found in the charge as follows; http://www.geoffreyedelsten.com/the-australian-criminal-reports-1990-vol51.pdf - The charge does not refer “a former patient” instead referred to as “another” – the use of “a former patient” is defamatory, the fact can be found in the charge as follows; http://www.geoffreyedelsten.com/the-australian-criminal-reports-1990-vol51.pdf - The alleged “another” as seen in the charges stood trial for the attempted extortion of Edelsten. "another" was the man who in 1984 harassed and intimidated Edelsten and his family to extort money with menaces. This other side is not covered, and by its absence presents a highly biased view. “another” was later sentenced to 3 and a 1/2 years prison for fraud of an Australian Government Agency of more than $330,000. - Flannery was not considered an underworld figure in 1984 – the date as set out in the charges. Flannery was only considered an underworld figure in media reports (seen above) that date from 1987 onward. There is an absence of such information between 1984 and 1987. Flannery was not considered an underworld figure in 1984. Recent attempts to correct/unbias the article have been wholly removed. Geoffrey Edelsten states that the Wikipedia article about him is highly defamatory and damaging. -- Gepa (talk) 06:32, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The above editor has a severe conflict of interest as a paid employee of article subject. The pattern of editing of this editor is single purpose and whenever someone edits something he doesn't like he immediately calls it defamatory. It should be noted that the article subject has made legal threats against several legitimate and respected WP editors. This information should be considered in context regarding Gepa's statements. Michellecrisp (talk) 11:09, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As of 15:13, 12 January 2009, admins Orderinchaos and Sarcasticidealist have been addressing the matter on the article talk page. Editor WWGB is making constructive comments on the talk page as well. Gepa, if the text is highly defamatory and damaging, you need to stop posting it around Wikipedia. Michellecrisp, Gepa made clear his self interest on his user page on 8 September 2008. Negative, unsourced adjectives about a criminal conviction of a living person must be removed, regardless of the self-interest of the person making the request. -- Suntag  ☼  15:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is under close scrutiny from various admins and experienced editors, every statement is referenced often from multiple sources. I see no problems with the article, there is nothing in Wikipedia policy that says we don't post negative information about a person that has been widely reported in the media and established as fact. Michellecrisp (talk) 23:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As I said at the article talk page I see room to move if the reliable sources provide it. In some cases, they actually do, and we can accommodate that. The word "hiring" has already departed from the article, for example, as he was charged with "soliciting", and I'm grateful to Gepa for providing the reliable source which I was able to get a librarian at a university to verify the authenticity of before adopting in the article. I think the underworld issue was resolved too. There'll likely be more issues we can resolve that way, although some of the points that have been claimed as false are both widely published and, in some cases, evidence to back them up can be found elsewhere (e.g. the pink-and-white helicopter in Youtube copies of the contemporaneous news coverage.) Orderinchaos 21:08, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Gaza beach explosion (2006)


The article relates to an incident in which several members of the Ghaliya family were killed in an explosion on a beach in the Gaza Strip. There is some controversy as to whether the blast was due to a mine, unexploded ordinance or Israeli shelling.

Recently, a few editors added the following text to the lead:
 * Huda Ghaliya's critically-wounded sister, Ilham, has been reported as saying that the explosion occurred when her father "touched something", possibly unexploded ordnance.

The claim is sourced to a 2006 Ha'aretz report in Hebrew and the claim was repeated, unsourced, in an English-language Ha'aretz article recently. No other major media outlet has picked-up on the story and the quote used in the lead is nowhere to be found by goolge other than the non-WP:RS source to which it refers. This is probably due to the fact that pictures of the father's body (including hands) show him to be rather in one piece, which would be odd if the explosion would have originated from his hands.

The more recent article is mentioned later in the body, together with other media reports, in that context: as a media report.

What makes this a WP:BLP-issue is that a weakly sources "exceptional claim" is reported as fact and being used to blame the family's tragic deaths on the father's curiosity or mishandling of unexploded munition in the close presence of his entire family. This blaming of the victims strikes me as rather impious, especially given the dubious nature of the claim.

I have tried to remove this claim before, and got blocked for WP:3RR as a result, which is why I am bringing this up here. There is some discussion on the article talk page here

Cheers and many thanks,  pedrito  -  talk  - 13.01.2009 16:15


 * Ummm, if the father's dead, then I don't see what BLP has to do with it. Impious or not, dead is the state of not being a living person.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, it's more of an insult to the surviving family members, and to the memory of the family as a whole. Cheers,  pedrito  -  talk  - 13.01.2009 17:03


 * Note: there is an even stronger version being pushed, which says the father "initiated" the explosion. The above wording is actually my compromise attempt to simply tone down the material (and improve the phrasing), but even that is being reverted. --Nickhh (talk) 16:57, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the "insult" phrasing by Pedrito is rather questionable. By that logic, we couldn't say anything mean about Richard Nixon because it would be an insult to his daughters.  Wrong place, wrong time.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:10, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * There is no BLP issue here - the father is dead, as is the daughter who is reported having made the claim. BLP is being trotted out by an edit warrior who got blocked for his edit war AFTER THE FACT, as a way to either exonerate himself or get a license to renew the edit war, against the consensus of multiple editors on that page. I've noticed a trend of abusing BLP in this way (since it is one of the exc3ptions to 3RR) and it's time to draw the line against this kind of behavior. Canadian Monkey (talk) 21:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The deaths occurred 2-1/2 years ago and, according to the article, the Israeli Defence Forces concluded that the explosion may have been the result of unexploded Israeli ordnance. The present implication that the unexploded Israeli ordnance accidently went off by the father's touch doesn't seem to amount to a BLPN issue. However, the statement should not be in the lead. Per Lead section, "The lead serves both as an introduction to the article below and as a short, independent summary of the important aspects of the article's topic." The statement doesn't represent a summary of the important aspects. As for Ilham's statement, The Independent reported two days after the explosion on June 11, 2006 that "In the shelling, which all but wiped out the Ghalia family as they were waiting on the beach for a taxi to take them home, Hadeel's 15-year-old half sister, Ilham, was decapitated." It seems unlikely that Ilham made the statement in 2006 as now claimed in 2009. -- Suntag  ☼  22:17, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Ilham Ghalia has been reported dead in several reports, and hospitalized in others . As this 2007 news article covers Ilham's discharge from an Israeli hospital, she was probably not decapitated back in 2006. ליאור (talk) 07:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The first ynetnews.com story lists Elham's age as 21 and spells her name differently within the same story. The second ynetnews.com news story, published about six months later, lists her age as 17. The lead paragraph in Wikipedia's article recently read: "Huda Ghaliya's sister Ilham, who was decapitated in the blast,[10] was reported as saying her father caused the lethal explosion when he handled an unexploded ordnance left behind from a previous incident." It was added and removed a few times. I removed the "decapitated in the blast" portion. Admin Elonka posted a note on the talk page about Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles. -- Suntag  ☼  13:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Another Ha'aretz article (not available online any more, but here's a link to a German translation) has an interview with her. In this interview, she expressly states that an artillery shell came down on the family. ("'Plötzlich ging eine Granate über uns nieder und traf uns direkt. Ich stand auf und konnte es nicht glauben. Körperteile flogen überall herum. Die Hand meiner Schwester war verstümmelt. Mein Vater war bereits tot. Er lag mit dem Gesicht im Sand"). The other article, where she is claimed to have implied her father caused the explosion, gives no source for the claim. MeteorMaker (talk) 16:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The article you cite brings the testimony of Ayham, not of Elham. That's the surviving boy, not the surviving girl. Let's concentrate this discussion at a single talk page. ליאור (talk) 17:10, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be just a little difficult for a decapitated person to offer an opinion? It sounds to me there's been a translation mix-up in the sources. Orderinchaos 21:24, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Kenneth Carrethers on BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant
Mention of arrestee Kenneth Carrethers's name in this article section is against the spirit of WP:BLP and his name isn't notable either. Is wikipedia in the business of becoming a directory of people who are arrested for minor crimes, or who are the subject of minor news stories. An editor there keeps reverting my efforts to keep the source and material, but delete his name.Critical Chris (talk) 01:23, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * To avoid WP:MULTI, you may wish to discuss at Talk:BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant. Chris misstates the issue--he wishes to make the section about Carrethers longer, while other editors wish to make it shorter or omit it entirely; but Chris wants to avoid mentioning the man's name at all, though Carrethers has no compunction about holding press conferences.  As the RFC shows, the section becomes unreadable because of constant mentions of an unnamed "individual" under Chris's version. THF (talk) 02:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * There are already two corporate media reports on this guy (Chron&NBC11) which makes it notable, but I disagree that we need to use his name as per this BLP policy on names.Critical Chris (talk) 02:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Can we get an admin on this to explain the BLP policy to Chris, so that he stops disrupting the editing of the article? Thank you. THF (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Are you asking for a circumvention of the process here THF? I thought this is supposed to be a comment period for other editors to weigh in.  They're smart enough to know what they are editing here.  We don't need admins, and we don't need other people requesting them for us.  Please cease and desist with your authoritarian air also.  I don't appreciate the parental, professorial tone.Critical Chris (talk) 22:09, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see any reason for the name there. It adds nothing to the aritlce and leads to BLP concerns. However I don't think that has to make the section much longer. Nil Einne (talk) 18:03, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Template:AmericanDomesticTerrorism

 * Template has been deleted so no need for further discussion at this time, unless of course there are objections to the deletion.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 14:08, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I've placed the above template up for TfD (see here), but wanted to get some other eyes on this asap. While I'm sure the intentions of the user who created this are good, this template has been dumped onto a bunch of BLP's of people who would wildly dispute the characterization of themselves as "domestic terrorist." If you check the user's recent contributions here you'll see all of the BLP's (and other articles) that have received this template. It may be obvious to some that Bill Ayers is a domestic terrorist, but he was never convicted of that so he'd have a pretty good defamation case against Wikipedia. Other BLP's which have been hit with this template are similarly problematic.

Since I'm the only one who has had a problem with this so far I don't want to go on a rampage and remove this template from all BLP's without getting a second and third opinion, which is why I'm here. I think this whole template should be deleted, but in the interim I suggest that we need to remove it from all articles where the subject is still alive, if not from all articles period. WP:TERRORIST is obviously quite relevant here. Thoughts?--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Wasn't there another TfD for something very similar very recently? Let me check.... CIreland (talk) 18:04, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This: Templates_for_deletion/Log/2009_January_5 CIreland (talk) 18:06, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that link, but that's a rather different case. For one thing it seems that almost everyone if not everyone named in that template was one of the 9/11 hijackers or has otherwise been convicted or charged with terrorism or some related crime. I would have still supported deleting that template and others like it given the extremely problematic nature of the word "terrorism" but no matter. This template is a different kettle of fish. It includes people like Assata Shakur whose (supposed) crime involved the shooting of a police officer, but whom the FBI later deemed a "domestic terrorist" for its own reasons. Michael William Brescia "is a convicted bank robber who has also been alleged to have been involved in the Oklahoma City Bombing." Alleged. Ashanti Alston was a member of the Black Liberation Army but was apparently only convicted of bank robbery (now he is a public speaker and activist). The article says nothing whatsoever about terrorism, and the only reason he receives the template is because someone (as in a Wiki editor) decided the Black Liberation Army is a terrorist org so everyone ever associated with it gets the domestic terrorist template, I guess. Obviously that's an enormous problem.


 * Many editors will not be sympathetic to the people named in this template but of course that's irrelevant. If our BLP policy means anything we certainly can't be labeling living people "terrorists" because they robbed a bank, or somebody because someone accused them of being involved with a "terrorist" crime, or because the FBI once called them a terrorist. I'd like to hear from more folks on the substantive BLP issue here. To me this is precisely the kind of situation that could lead to a lawsuit against the Foundation were one of these people ever to look themselves up on Wikipedia and see themselves grouped with other supposed "terrorists."--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The reason I brought up the previous TfD is that this template is a split of Template:AmericanTerrorism as a result, I think, of the TfD debate. CIreland (talk) 19:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes that is true, but regardless the issue here is still BLP related. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Clovis High School (Clovis, California)
I'm not sure this is the right place for this, but I brought it up on the Village Pump and it was suggested I come here. An anonymous editor, who keeps editing from a different account every time, is repeatedly adding non-notable people to the list of alumni and staff at Clovis High School (Clovis, California). It seems to me, that there should be some proof of notability of these people, by requiring that there be articles on them before they can be listed on a school page, otherwise it's just a sneaky way to avoid WP:BIO by making a big list of people who don't rate their own articles. Otherwise, why not have an article on Bands who play music, and just list every band that doesn't meet WP:MUSIC? I've tried explaining this, but the editor just keeps reverting saying there's no rule against it. Which of us is right in this? AnyPerson (talk) 02:20, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The general rule would be that a person would need to be notable enough to have their own Wikipedia article in order to include them in a list of notable alumni (only blue links, no red ones). If it's just a wrestling coach who had a good record then, no, they do not belong there. If the editor in question persists with this, just keep warning them on their talk page for adding unsourced information which is basically a form of vandalism (see here under "Addition of unsourced material without proper citations" for the format for those kind of warnings), and then eventually you can report them at WP:AIV and an administrator can step in, though hopefully it won't get to that point. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:11, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * They change addresses every time they edit. AnyPerson (talk) 04:04, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * An admin might still be able to deal with it via a rangeblock (I don't really know how to do those personally but some do).--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 13:28, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Bill Knott (poet)
I came across this on WP:VPM but think it should be mentioned here. Someone claiming to be Bill Knott has objected to a reference to suicide on the article. It appears to be sourced but the source is offline so I haven't seen it. (The other source mentioons death not suicide) Nil Einne (talk) 17:10, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Najib Razak
Just bringing attention to this article, about the incoming Prime Minister of Malaysia, which I noticed when following a news story. It seems to repeat itself in parts and make some particularly detailed allegations attempting to link him to murders and political corruption. The talk page is replete of accusations of "UMNO goons" (UMNO being Razak's, and his predecessor's, political party) and various other things. It's not something that would take much background knowledge if someone wanted to take it on (although knowing about Anwar Ibrahim is probably essential - his article isn't too bad, at least in the key sections), but would take time for researching sources that I don't have right now - would someone be willing to look at this? Orderinchaos 21:18, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Anderson Cooper

 * Note: I'm boldly closing this thread as it is nearly duplicating ongoing discussions with the same participants on the article talkpage. -- Banj e  b oi   18:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)



Input is needed relating to a blurb in the Anderson Cooper page, located here. The gist of the situation is how other people (not Cooper himself) are commenting on Cooper's alleged homosexual lifestyle. There is an extensive debate on the talk page, but there are only 4 editors involved, and it seems as if there are 3 in favor of removing the blurb; one in favor of keeping. This is a touchy enough subject such that outside input is needed. Tool2Die4 (talk) 13:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there are at least five editors involved if you count Tool2Die4, although Tool2Die4 has not offered any substantive discussion of the issue. (Tool2Die4 simply reverted an edit that had been supported by three of the other four editors, and accepted by the fourth.) Also, the quotes do not relate directly to the fact that the subject is gay. Instead, one is a false accusation of hypocrisy, and the other is simply irrelevant.TVC 15 (talk) 18:21, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd hope that this could be resolved by simply following WP:BLP's "Be very firm about the use of high quality references." --Ronz (talk) 18:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * ...And after this has been done, careful heed to WP:UNDUE. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:01, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with both previous, and would go further to say that one could apply UNDUE first and then BLP, or apply the principles simultaneously. In any case, since you described the issue as "touchy", it seems pretty clear the direction that that article should go in. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks - I had cited WP:UNDUE, and the false accusation of hypocrisy was solely in a blog comment. (The blog was that of a newspaper editor, but the newspaper did not endorse it.)TVC 15 (talk) 21:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Stepping back from this sockpuppetry nonsense, in general blogs are not reliable sources for anything other than the opinions of the blogger. For a BLP, that's even more emphatically true.  The content itself doesn't matter; it could be that Cooper just won the Nobel prize,  but coming from a blog such as those there, it just is not the kind of source the project uses.  For contentious material, one could argue it doesn't even merit mention on the Talk page, although the area is gray, of course.  Baccyak4H (Yak!) 04:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * No comment as to including or not the disputed content but does seem to be a sock of some sort greatly supporting TVC 15. The other user supporting removal is  and the main user wanting to keep the content in some fashion is.


 * Anonymous false accusations probably do not merit response, but Tool2Die4 made the same allegation and I was cleared. (At Tool2Die4's request, Scarian investigated, including requesting a WP:CheckUser that cleared me.)  There is no sock puppetry going on, unless perhaps the anonymous URL repeating the accusation might be a sock puppet of the initial false accuser.TVC 15 (talk) 02:07, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

No sock-puppet investigation was ever undertaken. TVC 15 fails to grasp the inner-workings of Wikipedia. Anything not to his liking, he will threaten you with "an RfC". An official investigation has been started here. Tool2Die4 (talk) 02:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The thread at User_talk:Tool2Die4 does support that Elphie13 was seen as a sock, or at least a user masking that they were unfamiliar with editing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.139.51.118 (talk) 03:02, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * When dealing with what seems like a contentious BLP issue, I think TVC shows remarkable wisdom. Rather than edit war, an offer for an RfC to bring in a wider audieance seems a very prudent response.  He(?) also seems to recognize the care that BLP articles demand.  Baccyak4H (Yak!) 04:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I explained this already in my post there, the assumption that I'd used WP before while saying I hadn't was based on me using NPOV in a sentence in my first post.
 * [T2D4, you're right about Elphie13 being someone who has edited Wikipedia before (see [2] - see "I really hope I'm doing this right", and then scroll down to see use of "NPOV" - Strange). - scarian]
 * Only, if you read the part I wrote he based that on, I didn't use NPOV, I was actually quoting that sentence in response to somebody else who said it before me up the thread, and didn't cite or respond to the NPOV part at all myself. Meanwhile found out what it means. Other than that it's based on nothing else than me agreeing with someone, and the CheckUser search turned up unrelated. Elphie13 (talk) 06:59, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Elphie13, it turns out that Tool2Die4 has now filed a WP:SSP: . The appropriate place to discuss the false accusation would be there, not here.  Also, I suspect the anonymous IP 'corroborating' the false accusation above may be a sock puppet of Tool2Die4, so I have requested a WP:CHECKUSER: .TVC 15 (talk) 07:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As the main holdout for including this information I want to address a few points. First off, the sources are perfectly reliable, the only issue seems to be WP:Undue which I think can be achieved through regular editing. This discussion has been ongoing for a while with editors, myself mainly, having to prove multiple reliable sources stating Cooper was gay before it was re-allowed into the article. Then the, apparently contentious, bits from Olberman and Naff were dissected. I didn't realize Elphie13 was a SPA but I answered them repeatedly the best I could. The main sticking point was that Cooper's non-answers weren't technically hypocritical as Naff had characterized them but something else. To me that was a red herring, Naff stated what he thought and the essence of his comments were reported. I'm not convinced that was undue but perhaps quoting Naff directly made it so. Similar to Olberman, who also commented on the exact same subject. His comments were questioned as to what grounds was he an expert. Both Olberman and Naff are professional journalists as is Cooper, Olberman is in a similar line of journalist celebrities who are marketed as themselves as well as journalists. Naff is a seasoned LGBT editor of a leading newspaper well familiar with outing issues as well as closetness and most LGBT issues. Cooper is, by definition, closeted, in that he is not openly gay although multiple independent reliable sources state he is outright and he has been romantically linked with quite a few men and nothing has contradicted any of this. I think we have generally done a good job dealing with nuances of wording but I still think including this information in some form is within policy. Perhaps - Cooper's refusal to discuss his sexuality has been criticized by MSNBC's Keith Olberman and Washington Blade's Kevin Naff. - would be acceptable? -- Banj e  b oi   00:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Benjiboi, please read WP:BITE, i.e. don't bite the newcomers; it is not really fair to call a newcomer an WP:SPA, because _everyone_ starts with one article. Elphie13 was falsely accused (and cleared by two different admins) of being a sock puppet, and so has survived more than enough name-calling already.  Second, Elphie13 disproved Naff's accusation of hypocrisy, and the relevance of Olbermann's statement (i.e., AC never said there wouldn't be any questions).  Third, the issue of whether to include that AC is gay is completely separate from the issue of whether to include others' criticisms of him.  As for AC being "by definition" closeted, that depends what definition you use, but if you check the relevant WP article on closeted I think you will agree he doesn't fit WP's definition.  I do acknowledge that the rephrasing you suggest above does reduce the undue emphasis, but it still singles out AC for criticism that is false or irrelevant.TVC 15 (talk) 01:43, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for linking BITE but where have I ever "bitten" this SPA? Elphie13, is, by definition a single purpose account, and I haven't bitten them as far as I'm aware, apologies if I did. Secondly, uhuh, that's what I basically stated, using hypocrisy was the issue and was Olberman enough of an expert here. Third, uhuh, old news there as well. As for closeted, yes, he is, but that is somewhat irrelevant as we aren't dissecting that word along with the others and no one has suggested inserting it that I'm aware. The criticism by both these journalists seems both true and relevant - Cooper has written a memoir about personal material yet has avoided directly answering repeated questions about his sexuality. Olberman and Naff have both criticized Cooper for doing that. Are you now accepting that my above wording would be acceptable? If not do you have different word that would be more accurate? -- Banj e  b oi   02:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Last I checked, there are no rules requiring anyone to discuss his sexuality. As a result, I fail to see why there is an insistence here on posting rumors in a BLP, especially rumors from blogs and the like, and from people who might be considered to be less than dispassionate on the issue.  Collect (talk) 02:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Sexuality, that is minority sexuality, is considered relevant on many BLPs. No one thinks twice if an article states someone is married but we have a much higher standard to even hint that someone is LGBT. That is not the issue here. We are reporting, neutrally what multiple reliable sources have stated, per policy. I believe our current policy still states that we can't add Cooper to any LGBT categories until they self-identify as LGBT, and that too is not an issue here. Nor is the issue if the sources are reliable or not. The only issue remains is how much weight to put on the comments of these two journalists about the reluctance of a third journalist to be forthcoming regarding his sexuality. -- Banj e  b oi   03:15, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * [outdent]Hi Benjiboi, I'll reply to each question in sequence. (1) WP:SPA is a controversial category that applies mainly to accounts whose "Single Purpose" is to edit one article or otherwise edit solely related to one Single Purpose.  For the category to have any meaning, it can only apply to some accounts and not others.  Every newcomer necessarily starts with one article, but that does not make every newcomer an SPA.  Calling a newcomer an SPA simply because it is his/her first article looks like a WP:BITE to me because it represents an accusation the newcomer might not even understand, involving a controversy that does not apply.  I hope Elphie13 will continue to contribute to WP, including on other articles.  Meanwhile, it would be unreasonable to expect a newcomer to edit multiple articles immediately just to avoid being called an SPA.  (2) If the issue were put to a straw poll I would still vote against including others' false and irrelevant criticisms in AC's bio, although I personally would not go so far as to delete your revised wording above, and I cannot think of better phrasing.  I understand they said what they said, but that doesn't mean their views belong in AC's bio.  There is a big difference between irony and hypocrisy, and even though AC is a reporter he has a right to decide what questions to answer.  I support including the fact that he's gay because other journalists' biographies mention similar information about their personal lives, e.g. Cronkite's girlfriend, Amanpour's husband; the sources are reliable and the fact has a similar level of relevance to other facts included in the biography.  However, he is not required to wear a pink triangle stitched to his clothing, and Naff and Olbermann's criticisms are simply wrong and irrelevant.TVC 15 (talk) 03:56, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Elphie13 is an SPA, that is not a controversial issue, they only subject they have edited on is Cooper's sexuality on the talkpage, this is what SPAs do. Cooper's being gay is not an issue here, and no, Olberman and Naff's statements aren't false or irrelevant, even if you keep stating that. Pink triangle? Seems like another red herring, no one has suggested anything close to that. I'm going to go ahead and add the above phrase in hopes that it is watered down enough to ease any undue concerns. -- Banj e  b oi   04:04, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * They are false, Benjiboy. I've explained this again in the older topic on the talkpage. If you still disagree, could you please explain to me why, slowly, because I clearly do not get it.
 * The pink triangle is a metaphor. Naff and Olbermann both talk as if they have the right to know what Cooper's sexuality is, but they do not actually have that right. It's Cooper's own right to decide who to tell, no matter how badly others want to know or not. I still disagree these statements belong here. Elphie13 (talk) 12:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Per BLP "This policy applies equally to biographies of living persons and to biographical material about living persons on other pages. The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia, but especially for edits about living persons, rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material. This burden applies not just to verifiability of sources, but to all Wikipedia content policies and guidelines." Collect (talk) 14:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, they are not false and the circular discussions on this are bordering on disruption, IMHO. The current text is Cooper's refusal to discuss his sexuality has been criticized by MSNBC's Keith Olberman and Washington Blade's Kevin Naff. The sources support this watered down version just fine. No need to digress, yet again, to dissect the wordings of Olberman and Naff as the spirit of what they stated is presented NPOV. If you want to dissect their quotes further perhaps you could wait until someone wants to actually use those quote in the article again? -- Banj e  b oi   18:42, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry I'm making you feel I'm disrupting the conversation, that is not my intent at all. I'm really not trying to have a circular discussion here. You've edited the article without any of us agreeing with the content and I just feel the answers you gave don't address my arguments sufficiently, which is why I repeat a lot, trying to state things differently to get you to explain what you mean or see my concerns, which results in a circular discussion. We're also having this discussion on three different places now.
 * I agree, the way it's stated now that the only thing the links prove is literally that they've talked about it. But I do think it is relevant what exactly they said, because to me we link to the demonstrably false facts only to prove people have talked about stuff, as they often do, and I myself don't think the knowledge this gives me on the topic of Anderson Cooper is reason enough to include links with factually inaccurate information about him. I and others think the facts used to base the criticism on are false, only you claim they aren't false facts, which is why I'm discussing that specific topic, trying to get a rebuttal from you of the arguments I used so I can address that, or so we can go on to discussing whether or not it's worth it to use the link, considering it's content being inaccurate, my position being No. Again, I sincerely apologize if I'm annoying you, I really, really don't mean to. Elphie13 (talk) 19:50, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The reason we have this watered down version - people have talked about stuff, as you have characterized it - is because of the endless discussion about the subject. I'm sorry but Naff and Olberman both criticized Cooper for refusing to discuss his sexuality. Direct quotes were endlessly quibbled about. You're still arguing about them and this seems to be the only thing you're editing about. If you're not a sock puppet of TVC 15, you sure are acting like it, as you have solely edited on talkpages about Cooper's sexuality in tacit support and in a similar manner as them. The talkpage is overflowing with digressions and red herrings and effectively driving away thoughtful comments from others. A straw poll based on an SPA's filling a talkpage is unlikely to gauge a situation accurately. I think the thread here can be closed as we never were at a BLP violation and this is being discussed, at length, on the talkpage. -- Banj e  b oi   20:55, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Am I correct in assuming that you find Naff's comments about everyone he thinks is gay to be germane to their articles? By the way, "SPA" is not sufficient for dismissing a valid argument. Collect (talk) 21:01, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, you would be very wrong to assume that. And SPA is being used to shed light on this particular and peculiar editor for other's edification. Before this thread i didn't realize they were an SPA, which is generally seen as a non-constructive POV-pushing editor. In this case, the sum total of their contributions has been to argue on one talkpage about Cooper's sexuality. That seems like a narrow focus for any editor and likely fails the duck test for being a puppet. -- <u style="font-size:14px; font-family: cursive;color:#8000FF">Banj e  <u style="font-size:14px;font-family: Zapfino, sans-serif;color:deeppink">b oi   21:07, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You're not addressing mine or Collect's points. Why is it not germaine in everyone elses, but it's relevant to Coopers page? Why do you think adding these links for the purpose it has now is so vitally important, moreso than making sure the facts about the subject we link to are accurate? If you think they are, why not address my arguments for concluding them not to be? The only one trying to get anyones POV in the article are you, the way I agreed it should be was NPOV and was agreed on by not just me but several other users.
 * I'm still arguing about it because, well, they're still there, you re-added the claims as links against all of our beliefs and arguments that we shouldn't. You're still arguing too. You claim red herrings and digressions, but it seems to me we're discussing multiple reasons to not include several links. The only actual digression was the sockpuppet discussion and, please, don't go there again. I've been accused and vindicated of being a sockpuppet twice already. The way things are going on this page are hardly an encouragement to take up more things. Can all just cool down now and go back to discussing this on the Talk page? Quote me there if necessary. Elphie13 (talk) 21:35, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Outdent. I've actually addressed all the relevant concerns already, repeatedly. Cooper has avoided discussing his sexuality. Multiple reliable sources state he is gay, he has never confirmed or denied this. He has been criticized for not discussing the issue while discussing many other facets of his personal life. These are all well sourced facts cited and reported dispassionately. You seem to be wikilawyering against including quotes that have now been left out due to this constant harping on the subject, thus gaming the system. No false statement, as you allege, have been inserted or implied. Those links are actually reliable sources that assert exactly what we stated NPOV in the article. -- <u style="font-size:14px; font-family: cursive;color:#8000FF">Banj e <u style="font-size:14px;font-family: Zapfino, sans-serif;color:deeppink">b oi   22:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I was arguing against the external links. I'm not arguing to remove any mention he's been reported to be gay. I feel linking to them in the BLP is inappropriate, since we're not correcting the false and negative assertions made on the topic, Anderson Cooper, but we are linking to them, and only to prove the existance of specific criticism by specific people, which I think is not worth the value it adds to do include them. You say there is no false information in the articles, that they are reliable and high quality. We keep coming back to this issue, wouldn't it just be easier for you to respond to my arguments for finding them to be misleading and untrue, and prove me false?


 * Please stop using prejogatory terms about me, like wikilawyering, saying terms that you feel apply to me are "generally seen as a non-constructive POV-pushing editor", a puppet, and 'harping on the subject'. It was the majority opinion to not quote them, and we continue discussing it because you disagree. The 'harping on the subject' resulted in putting it on the noticeboard here, where people adviced against using it. None of the actual criticism was deemed relevant to be quoted on WP by everyone but you, because they included and were based on false information, which we are now linking to. So all of us are 'harping on the subject' and you're the only one who is objective and makes sense? Elphie13 (talk) 12:37, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed, disparagement of others seems an odd way to achieve consensus which is supposed to be the goal. WP rules and guidelines are intended to guide us towards proper consensus, and to make the article better.  One problem now is that one source appears to be partially discredited as to its claims. In a trial, once a witness is dicredited on one issue, he may be discredited on all issues.  A "reliable source" shown not to be reliable on one issue may be considered by some not to be reliable on other issues in the same cite.  Collect (talk) 14:24, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment. I'm boldly closing this thread as it is nearly duplicating ongoing discussions with the same participants on the article talkpage. The talkpage itself is voluminous but at least we can attempt to have one discussion rather than parallel threads. -- <u style="font-size:14px; font-family: cursive;color:#8000FF">Banj e  <u style="font-size:14px;font-family: Zapfino, sans-serif;color:deeppink">b oi   18:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Sol Wachtler


A user claiming to be Sol Wachtler, former Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, has been removing well-sourced background material about the felony charge to which he pleaded guilty, including this citation to a New York Times news article. User claims "...printing them as fact are defamatory and untrue". --CliffC (talk) 03:06, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Direct him to WP:COIC where he will be told to freely use the talk page, but not to do edits. If he does not understand the simple English involved, report him to an admin who will likely block him. Stat. Collect (talk) 03:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've reverted and left him a message. Can we please have more administrator eyes on this article.  After sampling some of the 600-plus New York Times articles mentioning Wachtler, as a non-admin Wikipedia foot soldier I'm not comfortable dealing any further with this issue or this person.  --CliffC (talk) 16:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Is anyone watching this? A newly registered user has now followed in the IP's footsteps, removing the same well-cited material.  There seems to be a legal bent to these edits, with the theory being that anything not said in court records may not be said here, no matter how reliable the source.  --CliffC (talk) 23:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The whitewash continues. On January 15, "new" user JMHarlan, who seems to be Wachtler himself based on the use of "I" in his edit summary, again removed well-cited material and two citations, with edit summary "Silverman fund was $5Mil,I was paid $30,000,fee was never.ontested,converstation related to something entireley different,you have used unproven and untrue info."


 * I would appreciate more admin interest in this article. --CliffC (talk) 14:18, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Soapboxing in the Mikis Theodorakis article
This editor keeps adding his personal views about the relations between Jews and Palestinians to our article on Theodorakis. One of the sentences he is adding (in all caps) is: HE ANSWERED THE CALL WHEN THE JEWS NEEDED IT HE COULD NOT HAVE FAILED BUT ANSWER THE CALL OF THE PALESTINIANS NOW. Though Theo is known to have colorful opinions in this area, this editor appears to be using a Wikipedia article as a soapbox. Would it be correct to issue him a final warning not to re-add the material? Can he be blocked for vandalism if this continues, or is a wider discussion needed? EdJohnston (talk) 03:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This is an example of one of his edits . He should be reminded to take his concerns to the talk page.—Sandahl (talk) 04:13, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * OMG, that article is a very, very poor state. I removed this which was admitedly rather new  but the whole article is in a poor state with extensive mention of his official view and quotes thereof Nil Einne (talk) 15:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Roberta Pedon
A series of recent edits has added a whole bunch of information to this article. They were no doubt made in good faith, but they are all either from unreliable sources or the obvious result of original research. They include data that make it pretty clear that the subject is indeed dead, but since they're not from legit sources, Pedon's technically still subject to WP:BLP. My first instinct is to try to undo all of these edits, but I may be too close to this topic. (See my rant, typed months ago, on the subject's talk page.) Would someone less emotional about this subject look over the edits and decide if BLP, or other policies, require their reversion? Thanks. David in DC (talk) 16:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * There are only really 4 sources, but all list her as dead. I haven't seen one that says she is still living. Could they all be mistakes, sure. See Al Lewis (actor) for an error that has been repeated by reliable sources. If information arises that she is living, that can be added too, just like it is handled in the Al Lewis article. IMDB may be wrong, the Adult Movie Database may be wrong, but show some reference that says they are wrong. Maybe Elvis is still alive, maybe Paul McCartney is dead, these fringe theories have good reliable sources, even though they are incorrect. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:37, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Sensory Sweep Studios
Sensory Sweep Studios came to my attention via a notice on the COI board against User:TheOneTrueSweeper and User:Thecitizen22, who (along with IPs) are obvious POV and/or COI editors, blanking material about a wage claim lawsuit from the article. The problem is that the lawsuit's title is one of those et al. titles, which does not mention Sensory Sweep by name, though it does name SS founder Dave Rushton. Does this fall under BLP, since there's no evidence in the link that Sensory Sweep is a party to the suit? -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  20:01, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Christie Brinkley


An editor claiming to be the photographer (Errol Sawyer) who discovered Brinkley started a COI dispute by repeatedly editing himself into the article in order to verify once and for all my professional legitimacy. Link He is quite open (and hostile) about feeling "slighted" by the lack of credit he receives for Brinkley's success, but laid off after a warning, only to be replaced by his agent/wife, who is using a published book (the only source anyone can find that mentions Sawyer) on modeling to add quotes that don't add important info regarding Brinkley so much as stress Sawyer's role in her discovery and lead to undue weight for the section and possibly a copyright vio. She mainly uses the rationalization that readers will be interested to read the quotes, so they should stay.

Here and here are the versions that are as close as we can come to a compromise after much discussion on my talk page, but I still feel her version (the second link) violates a few policies and I was hoping some editors could offer their opinions. The first link is the current version of the page (at least at the moment). Thanks!  Mbinebri  talk &larr; 21:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, wait, we now have yet another version and it's one I think it's more likely myself and this other editor can live with. If anyone still wants to offer an opinion though, feel free.    Mbinebri   talk &larr; 22:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

John G. Roberts

 * - addition of defamatory material to lede of article
 * - user repeatedly posting obnoxious, defamatory material to article. see these example edits. claims that this incident is the 'defining moment' of roberts's career, and must be in lede:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_G._Roberts&diff=265431947&oldid=265426523

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_G._Roberts&diff=265440377&oldid=265439799 Anastrophe (talk) 07:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Aron Bielski and Bielski partisans
I am concerned about a recently created article Aron Bielski and material concerning that person inserted into Bielski partisans. Aron Bielski is 80 years old and the last remaing Bielski brothers, whose World War II activitie are described in the movie Defiance. Bielski has lived in obscurity until the movie, except for an arrest in 2007 for his alleged kidnapping of a woman in Florida. Material concerning that arrest was put in both of these articles and I removed but it was reinstated. Under WP:NPF, I don't see how the arrest can be included because he is notable only because of his participation in the partisan group. That leaves the Aron article with virtually nothing, and I've proposed it for deletion. Editors are insisting upon retention of the arrest in the Aron Bielski article, and unsuccessfully sought to include the arrest in the article on the movie. If the Aron Bielski AfD is not successful, the arrest will comprise approximately one-half on the article. I expert my removal of the arrest from the Bielski partisans article will also be reverted. Stetsonharry (talk) 19:49, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Sam Adams (Oregon politician)
This politician had a sexual affair with a young gay man but I'm looking for advice as I wonder if the young man's name should be left off. It has been reported, but beyond that it's not clear if actually naming them helps the article in any way. Given the young man's age I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to leave it off rather than record them at the center of a gay sex scandal? -- <u style="font-size:14px; font-family: cursive;color:#8000FF">Banj e <u style="font-size:14px;font-family: Zapfino, sans-serif;color:#FF0066">b oi   22:06, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Good call. David in DC (talk) 03:41, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Lady Gabriella Windsor
Current edit war going on the page Ochib (talk) 23:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Gerbils and Richard Gere


The above user is repeatedly inserting poorly-sourced claims about an urban legend concerning Richard Gere placing small mammals in his nether parts. Would appreciate some attention to the article. Kelly hi! 07:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks like a pretty clear WP:BLP issue. I was curious about the assertion that "you do not get a much better than those sources", until I realized that the editor was referring to dialog from the movie Scream and The Family Guy. I will leave an additional caution on the user talk page; further violations will lead to a block. MastCell Talk 18:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

William Timmons


The most recent removals show the information being challenged about this guy:


 * Info about Timmons's connections with Samir Vincent and others related to Iraq oil deals,.
 * Info about Timmons's memos concerncing Nixon's attempt to deport John Lennon, and how these memos were found,.
 * Also various other things found about him in sources are being challenged for relevance,.
 * And another removal of sourced Freddie Mac relatinship,.

Can we get more opinions about how to report on these sources? May I recommend that the usual crew from that argument hold off here until we get a few other opinions to work with? Prior attempts to get input here were swamped by the same old same old. Dicklyon (talk) 19:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * commented there. DGG (talk) 19:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll interpret silence here as an indication that nobody sees any BLP violation in the items linked above, so I can restore them. OK? Dicklyon (talk) 06:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Nope. He asked that no one else reply -- your use of the talk page for William Timmons, moreover, and your templating me with a warning of being "blocked fopr vandalism" because I do not feel an article talk page should be used for attacks on editors is, moreover, an issue on which I would like outside opinions. Thank you most kindly. and, and for general use of the talk page       etc. from an editor who has not actually edited on the article since Election Day. The "revisions" now in place oinclude cites for pharmaceutical company profits <g> which shows how far afield this article is being pushed. Thanks! Collect (talk) 11:06, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Right, I didn't mean I would interpret as you not objecting; just looking to see if anyone agrees. Dicklyon (talk) 23:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You stated that if no one objected that you assumed it was all right to make your changes. Lack of comment here does not make consensus in the article. It was not. And I still find a section saying someone was "involved with" someone who was committing a crime is a genuinely disputable item for a BLP. Collect (talk) 23:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * See WP:PRESERVE and please stop deleting material that in no way violates BLP. Thanks! csloat (talk) 02:01, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

"This policy applies equally to biographies of living persons and to biographical material about living persons on other pages. The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia, but especially for edits about living persons, rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material. This burden applies not just to verifiability of sources, but to all Wikipedia content policies and guidelines." Collect (talk) 14:16, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

User:Collect and User:Rtally3 keep asserting some problems with these well-sourced items; does anyone else see them as problematic? Dicklyon (talk) 23:32, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Any other voices?


 * An inapt claim, alas. The actual cite on Timmons has his name in a single sentence, and the added material is pure SYN. In fact, the chapter title of the book is about using Ted Sorensen to try briging the UN Secretary General.  In short -- this is petard time for that source. Collect (talk) 18:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Collect, I don't seem to be able to find support for your point of view on the sources. Last call...  Dicklyon (talk) 22:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Nor did I see comments favoring your position either -- seems that third opinions are scarce today. Collect (talk) 11:36, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As an alternative approach, and to break the stalemate, I suggest editors research the subject in more detail  and then focus on the issues that secondary sources focus on. As a general comment, I don't think it is a good idea to source BLP content to books that only have a single-sentence mention of the subject. Looking at the wider field of sources – there seem to be plenty – should establish where the priorities in our article should lie. Note that we also have a Timmons & Company article. I think it would be more appropriate for the firm's lobbying activities to be covered there, rather than in the BLP of the firm's founder.  Jayen <i style="color:#FFBF00;">466</i> 11:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That's what I've been trying to do; I've ordered 6 of those books that I can't read online. Trouble is, nobody focuses on Timmons; you get a few words here and a few words there; he's really only marginally notable at all; so I put what I can find, and these guys balk when it casts him in a poor light.  Dicklyon (talk) 02:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Since your "cites" tried linking him to Watergate, to the 1972 Nixon campaign, to the Lennon deportation, to pharma industry profits, to illegally trying to lift Iraq sanctions, to making oil deals with Hussein and the like all with "single sentence" cites which did not actually back up the claims made, there is some reason to doubt that the fault lies with those who found the single sentence cites deficient.  If no one focuses on a person, might you consider that it is likely that he was unimportant in the affair?  Collect (talk) 11:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't write those books. And I never added anything that said he did anything illegal.  It does seem that he was important in advising Nixon about how to handle the Watergate fallot, in the Lennon deportation attempt, in the F-18 lobbying, in the pharma lobbying/profits, in the Iraq oil dealings that landed his associate in jail, etc., but I did not add anything to the article that sounded like a judgement of how important he might have been; tried to just report the facts as they were found in reliable sources; as for the 1972 Nixon campaign, he was certainly important in that, as the quoted sources make clear.  What else have you got?  Dicklyon (talk) 06:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Timmons appears at most to have been a relatively monor functionary. He had ansolutely no connection to the Watergate scandal, and the advice to keep doing his job was not precisely earth-shattering. Re Lennon, he wrote a single memo to a Senator who had asked him to look into something. Absolutely no concrete evidence he was in any loop about Lennon, nor that the Lennon deportation was connected to the 1972 election campaign. As for the F-18 lobbying, there is no evidence that he was directly involved in any improper activity whatsoever. As for pharma profits, that is simply Monty Python time <g>. As for Iraq oil dealings, there is no evidence whatever that he did any crime or intended any crime. Guilt by association, last I looked, was not considered valid in BLPs. He is a "functionary" and not a policy wonk. Perhaps the fact that sources do not give him more than a single sentence is because that is all his actions merit. Collect (talk) 11:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Alan Shawn Feinstein
I noticed that the article on Alan Shawn Feinstein had once again been stripped of all negative information and the puffery added back in by 70.184.13.225 on January 14th, and then Thingg had kindly reverted it to its previous objective state.

I wondered if I could find out who 70.184.13.225 was, keeping in mind that I am not an IP maven, etc. and also keeping in mind that anonymous people keep turning this article into a puff piece, which I find really annoying. I googled and found a place where 70.184.13.225 existed. Also keeping in mind that I am not an email header maven, it looks to me like it is Feinstein himself.

Here's where I found it: http://webmail.warwickschools.org/Public%20Announcements/FAV1-00016C5B/I00676BD4?ShowInternetHeader=1

"Trudyjh (talk) 06:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)"

Men Nguyen
Will someone please look into this, thank you▪◦▪ ≡S i R E X≡  Talk 07:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * - contentious material added to the article Men Nguyen with the sources given is newsgroup group rec.gambling.poker and the other news.parttimepoker.com which list the story under Home >> Gossip / Tournament News, the story doesn't even list the author's byline.
 * - user is under the impression that it is a reliable source and keep reverting the contentious material back into the article.
 * Will issue a warning to Degen... parttimepoker is citing a blog as a source.--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon CSD Survey Results 07:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * He's now talking about the issue on the Men talk page. He's provided 3 sources now, one is marginal, the other two don't cut the mustard.--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon CSD Survey Results 08:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Men Nguyen 2
One editor continues to try to add allegations and rumors to this article. Some allegations certainly have been made, but no proof of the allegations exist, and no action from an authority have ever been taken. I would appreciate a few more eyes taking a look at the article. Thanks. 2005 (talk) 03:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Duh, I missed this entry, so I'm moving what I added here, but want to point out the article is still under attack. 2005 (talk) 03:14, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Olusegun Agagu
His information is incredibly biased. Unfortunately I do not have much information on him so I'm not qualified to submit an article about him Here are some samples from Agagu's page "Dr. Olusegun Agagu is a man of integrity who fulfills whatever he promises."

"It is the loud noise of the minority (oppositions)who does not like him [Olusegun Agagu] that supports this assertion. These people are mostly politicians and those who are addicted to primordial ethnic sentiments."

"In ICT, Dr. Olusegun Agagu has really done well and make Ondo state to be one of the ICT leading states."

There are many other biased statements like the ones above in the article as well as the occasional grammatical error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Broadfootb (talk • contribs) 06:50, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The article is dire and I have stubbed it. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Ken McCarthy
The article on, a key figure in the commercialisation of the Internet and a well-respected provider of education to small businesses, has been subjected to an onslaught of repeated vandalism by.

This has been a relentless campaign since the near-dormant account flared into life on 2nd December by posting two unsubstantiated (and actually false) allegations into the article (which had been inserted previously by an anonymous editor a couple of weeks earlier). Diff:

This user has pursued a single-issue onslaught in furtherance of his desire to undermine the reputation of Mr McCarthy by labelling him as a conspiracy theorist despite the lack of reliable verifiable sources to support this thesis, and despite the damaging nature of the epithet.

Numerous attempts by various other editors to reason with him on various talk pages, and point out his numerous policy violations have had no effect on his behaviour. DaveApter (talk) 14:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Manuel Medina (Boxer)
Says that he won 64 and lost 15 of 78 fights, that cant be right! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.197.81.192 (talk) 18:38, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Nicole Marciano
Possible issue here - see Special:Contributions/Jacoblauren. --NE2 19:52, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * See also User talk:PeterSymonds. Peter <b style="color:#02b;">Symonds</b> ( talk ) 20:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the questionable content from Nicole Marciano. I have also removed the warning tag placed at User talk:Jacoblauren. Jacoblauren's edits were removing unreferenced, unverified information. The article Nicole Marciano should be monitored closely, and if people continue to re-add this personal information without references, then the article should be protected. Kingturtle (talk) 22:59, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Sathya Sai Baba
If Sathya Sai Baba is a saint like Jesus, then his actual Wikipedia article is him crucified and bleeding in the cross... like it was wrote by the hands of Pontius Pilate.

The article clearly does not follow the "Neutral Point of View" policy, but worst than that, it does not respect [|Basic Human Dignity]

It states Sai Baba as a criminal - is it enciclopedic? As someone said: "let the police do its job!" And it does it while you can find millions of people thanking him everyday through the whole globe! Why people everywhere is passionately singing his name as if he is God? WHY? Because he emanates ashes from his hand and metal balls from his throat? Of course, not.

I believe his true devotees are busy doing selfless service and none have time or skill to properly edit this article, brutally and "professionally" vandalized as it is by people highly skilled in Wikipedia policies.

Come on! He is teaching and practicing what he teaches: help the needy - there are several hospitals, educational institutions, and huge water purifying projects, offering medicine, education and purified water for free. Anyone can go there and see it with its own eyes: big and excellent hospitals and universities are there!

We can only be sorry for the bad use of the Wikipedia exemplified in this article. I don't know how this can be avoided without breaking the own Wikipedia spirit of letting everyone contribute - there are good contributors, but, unfortunately, bad contributors.

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.15.110.25 (talk) 02:15, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * 1st time that I've looked at this article. Has been subject of 2 arbitrations, see Requests for arbitration/Sathya Sai Baba 2.  At first glance it does look extremely negative, but it also does look to be well documented.  I inserted the link to a BBC documentary that was referenced.  It looks just as (or almost as) negative as the article reads.  Somehow I don't want to mess with this - there might be a lot of nastiness involved.  Smallbones (talk) 12:41, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem is in my view that the only active users are focused on minimizing and maximizing criticism without having much knowledge of the sources. Nor are they interested in assessing the quality of sources. They should read the archives and check the history of the article. The article used to be better. If there is no improvement in their attitude and quality of their edits, I will complain to the arbcom. Andries (talk) 08:21, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know much about the current state of the article but your claim "I believe his true devotees are busy doing selfless service and none have time or skill to properly edit this article, brutally and "professionally" vandalized as it is by people highly skilled in Wikipedia policies" is most definitely not true as shown by the history of the article. Many of them (his devotees) appear to have devoted a lot of time to trying to make it like they see fit. And yes, it is undoutedly true that there are people trying to do the opposite but that doesn't excuse their behaviour. Nil Einne (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I have tried to edit this article, and made several complaints in its discussion page, unsucessfully.

For me, this case is extremely serious: we can feel like the article is "guarded" by "biased POV wiki-policeman", that do not allow the article correction, but as its opinion seems to be endorsed by deeper wiki hierarchy power, we feel our strongest efforts to do something are useless. A team is there ready to maintain status quo.

But, as the lack of NPOV is so crystal clear, I am trying this channel to report it.

Please, help me bringing this case to higher administrators, because it is very serious. You will just spent a couple of minutes to be aware that it is serious (not to resolve it, but only to watch and say: "Oh, my! This is serious!")

In a few words: the article was supposed to be about a saint, and seems to be about a criminal. The wikipedia space is being used by people who wants to promote that Sai Baba is not a saint (in other words: it is biased, not NPOV, etc) But it is worst, because: not only it is sustained in biased sources itself, but also the criticism is not soft, it is a violent agression against Basic Human Dignity.

See: [Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba#About_Sathya_Sai_Baba_article_improvement] [Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba#What_if_Sai_Baba_is_really_an_Avatar.3F]

I tried editing the article in a soft way, but it was reverted almost instantaneously.

And worst: I tried to find my edition in the archive to paste it here, but I found that... the history is biased! You can't found no trace of my contribution (removed as large scale vandalism! Oh, my...) ... and I tried to find the older version of the article... but the history is such that you can't find traces of the article as it was before the actual "professional vandalism" (I am ironically calling it this way)

Fortunately, we can found better articles in other languages, so you can compare and judge yourself: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba

I had to wrote to another person who manifested insatisfaction and trie to edit (as me):

"It's obvious that the article is clearly biased, but there is nothing you or me can do to change it, since it's edition is not open or free anymore. In short: this Wikipedia article is owned by anti-Baba 'editors', and that's all."

"Ah, another thing: it seems (I am no sure) that user Andries is playing a fake pro-Baba role, while it is another anti-Baba, just faking a pro-Baba attitude, but in reality he is together with user White adept, but only enacting another point-of-view, so they together fill the whole space there." (user Nil Einne may have wrong impression due to "biased history" and "fake pro-Baba")

You see: what is happening there is VERY SERIOUS, something very very very serious.

The anti-Baba power there drives you to read the "Findings" and other anti-Baba violent documents, including the anti-Baba made documentaries. They don't direct you to offical websites, with lots and lots of testimonials and evidences, most of them with its references mentioned:

http://www.srisathyasai.org.in/Pages/SriSathyaSaiBaba/HisWritings.htm http://www.srisathyasai.org.in/Pages/Devotees_Experiences/devotees_exp.htm http://www.radiosai.org/journals/ http://www.sssbpt.org/

In other words: Wikipedia is being criminally used there by this group trying to enforce mere allegations and suppositions as "enciclopedic" - not allowing other POV to be represented.

In short: this article makes Wikipedia a not reliable source for the eyes of millions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.15.134.138 (talk) 15:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Is this pic a violation of WP:BLP? WARNING violent and may be shocking to someSee User_talk:White_adept Andries (talk) 23:38, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * HERE! LOOK! The above paragraph is Andries-fake-pro-Baba wanting you to click and see the shocking picture! (next, he will invite you to read the "Findings" - the full-of-lies-anti-Baba-doc, by asking: "is this doc a violation of reliable source?")


 * The Sathya Sai Baba article is one of the very sensitive controversial article which went through 2 arbitrations and many of the pro sai and anti editors were banned to let other NPOV editors to contribute and improve it. After arbitration this article was maintained pretty well till January 07 2009. From January 08th 2009 a new user http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:White_adept - hardcore anti sai activitist has taken over this article. His agenda is very clear from the talk page where he compares SaiBaba to Osama Bin Laden. He has completely rewritten the article in an anti sai perspective in a matter of 10 days. Just on Jan 12th 2009 he made 35 edits to the article. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sathya_Sai_Baba&dir=prev&offset=20090111045336&action=history. The article which had been maintained for the past 2 years is completely rewritten in a matter of 10 days in the most negative perspective and does not have single positive incident about Sathya Sai Baba.
 * 1) He removed all the NPOV titles and subtitles.
 * 2) He uses unreliable sources.
 * 3) He has also added offending gross inappropriate images. These images have nothing to do with the biography of Sathya Sai Baba.
 * 4) Makes major data change to article with out discussing in the talk page.
 * There are more than 2000 books on Sathya Sai Baba written by both Indian and foreign authors who have had a very positive influence from Sai Baba in their life. There are also some books by critics, internet blogs, couple of website. But they are very small in number may be around 75 - 100 which comes to 5%. Previously before the user - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:White_adept started contributing the Sathya Sai article had 70 - 75% positive information about Sai Baba mentioning his teaching, miracles etc and had 10 - 15% of criticism from sources such as findings etc. After Jan 8th 2009 in just 10 days the new user White_adept has made it 99% critical article based on only source "The Findings". Every positive comment on Sathya Sai Baba has been removed. This is totally unfair that a single hardcore anti sai user is rampaging this article. If some body else tries to change then immediately their changes are reverted. Can something be done to stop this user from rampaging the biography of Sathya Sai Baba?. Is arbitration the only solution.
 * Please advice.Thanks. RadiantEnergy 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have not followed the history of this article nor this present dispute. However, there is prima facie evidence that RadiantEnergy is a sock. RadiantEnergy is deeply conversant in WP guidelines and policies, as well as the history of this article (see above and Special:Contributions/Radiantenergy with attention to both the changes and the edit summaries). However, this account was created on 17 January 2009. Bongo  matic  06:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Let me straighten out a few things. First I am not a Sock Puppet and secondly I am not new to wikipedia. I have been contributing to wikipedia in a couple of articles since 2007 as unregistered user. Some of the articles I have contributed so far are
 * Ramakrishna
 * Swami Vivekananda
 * Mahabalipuram
 * These were not controversial topics. I never had a problem with the editors contributing to these articles. Wikipedia never enforced any rule saying I have to first register as a user to contribute to wikipedia. Its my choice to register as a user or not. Now I decided to register as a wikipedia user since I am dealing with this controversial topic of Sathya Sai Baba.
 * I have been following a couple of topics in wikipedia closely since 2007. Brahma Kumari - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma_Kumari. Sathya Sai Baba and Prem Rawat - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prem_Rawat. All these articles have been very controversial and with years of edit wars. I had also followed the arbitration in the Sathya Sai Baba very closely. This topic has been going through years of edit wars. Unfortunately this article seems to be becoming more and more negative. The current editors are only making it worst. This is a very challenging topic and I am planning to contribute to this and see if I can make it any better.
 * RadiantEnergy 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about RadiantEnergy history, but his description of actual state of things in Sathya Sai Baba's article, above, describes well what is happening there. Also, there is mentioned in the own article that there are 6 (six) or 50 (fifty) or 100 (one hundred) million devotees around the world. Among them we can find from poor people, to people that donates around USD 49 million in a single donation... also professionals from every field (lawyers, doctors, teachers, etc.) and religious people from all religions... For all these millions of people, an article like this in the Wikipedia is very very bad for Wikipedia itself, because, forgive me the hard words, it's a complete trash. We start wondering this like: "How much was paid for Wikipedia to maintain this user, White adpet, in the control of this article?"... "Is Wikipedia selling its spaces?"... because none can do anything to change this absolutely clear not NPOV, biased article - try it yourself! But notice that the anti-Baba movement is very strong... I mean, it is not the case of a single lonely user efort... I can't imagine what is really happening behind the scenes, but we start wondering... For Sai Baba's devotees, He is the own awaited "Jesus second coming" - for many Christians, that recognized their master's return, He is really Jesus promise being fullfilled. But, imagine the great number of Christians who do not agree with this claim - with all the force of heated Christians who doesn't believe that Sai Baba is who He is saying He is... by one hand, they are trying to influence, making everybody read this carefully-but-not-much prepared collection of lies, called "Findings", and thus conquering space, power, influence, adepts of the "anti" movement... by the other hand, even with such a big/strong "force", and so much effort in repeating, repeating, repeating the same few appointments with many new "colours" and "texts", they are not able to do nothing better than this bad written article, now in Wikipedia. What is umconfortable is that the article is not free anymore - you can't help to revert the not-NPOV, biased, offending Basic Human Dignity and information-supressed state of things. "White adept" is the police - nothing we can do. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.15.154.139 (talk) 15:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Again not commenting on the current state of the article but I would point out that anyone who keeps calling Sathya Sai Baba a saint is probably not the best judge of the article's current state. (Nor for that matter anyone who keeps calling him a criminal.) Also it's rather convinient to claim that all people who have behaved poorly are 'fake', you could really well say the same thing for those anti-. The fact is tho, the arbcom in 2 cases found no evidence as far as I'm aware that the pro- or anti- people they banned or otherwise sanctioned were anything but genuine and it would be wise for people to accept that if they want to move on. Pretending that there aren't people on both sides who have behaved unacceptably is not going to help the situation any. P.S. Official sources are highly frowned upon in a case like this, other then to demonstrate the official POV. It doesn't matter whether they proport to have independent testimony. What we need are reliable secondary sources. Nil Einne (talk) 16:23, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Kindly allow me to point out that the vast majority of content I added is from sources like The BBC, The Times, The Guardian, Danish National Television documentary, Sociologist Robert Priddy, Dale Beyerstein, Anthropologist Lawrence Babb, Basava Premanand etc . Some centrally relevant material was drawn from The Findings -  which seemed very relevant and necessary because of the document's notability.  - only some centrally relevant material has been used from it - which can be verified from the article itself. Also when the source is used, the nature of the work, (of it not being academic in nature), has been explicitly made clear. We absolutely cannot ignore the source because of the central relevance of the source's perspective in issues related to controversies surrounding the godman. Commenting on this work, Michelle Goldberg points out:


 * It all started with a document called "The Findings," published in late 2000 by long-term devotees David and Faye Bailey, whose marriage was arranged by Sai Baba. Part of the nearly 20,000-word piece is given over to evidence that Sai Baba fakes his materializations and doesn't magically heal the sick -- revelations that seem self-evident to nonbelievers but provoke fierce debate in devotee circles and blazing headlines in the Indian press.


 * Also, the false claim that I added material from The Findings "alone" is only demonstrative of the nature of the claims being put forward here by the two editors who call themselves "pro-baba". Also I find surprising that the editors consider themselves "pro-baba" to such an extent that they seem to consider it necessary to berate other editors, for instance "Andries", for not being "pro-baba"-enough.


 * The previous state of the article - it seems to me, was the direct consequence of some people's attempt to cover-up all this centrally relevant content. This person is absolutely not portrayed in International media ( nor in scholarly circles for that matter. See Priddy, Premananda, Beyerstein, Lawrence babb,Erlendur Haraldsson etc. )as a saint. The previous article drew mostly from self-published books written by devotees listening to the godman's claims about himself. Note that the authors of "The Findings" had written three such books before they published the work. Even now such devotee-written books constitute almost all the +ve stuff in the article. I wonder why these two editors don't raise any issue with such sources - while repeatedly attacking some very relevant content from The Findings and also from sources such as The BBC, The Times, etc.


 * White adept (talk) 17:53, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * <B> Proposals from the second arbitration commitee to improve the article </b>
 * I looked at the proposals made at the second arbitration to improve the article. The first step is to use reliable sources. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sathya_Sai_Baba_2#Sathya_Sai_Baba_is_weakly_sourced. The following are some of the sources recommended by arb.com rulings.
 * Klass, MortonSinging with Sai Baba: The Politics of Revitalization in Trinidad, Westview Press, 1991 ISBN 0813379695
 * The Sathya Sai Baba community in Bradford : its origin and development, religious beliefs and practices, Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds, 1988.
 * McKean, Lise,  Divine enterprise : Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Movement ISBN 0226560090 and ISBN 0226560104
 * White, Charles, SJ, The Sai Baba Movement: Approaches to the Study of India Saints, The Journal of Asian Studies, 1972, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Aug., 1972), pp. 863-878
 * Bann, LA Babb, Lawrence A, Sathya Sai Baba's Magic, Anthropological Quarterly, 1983, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Jul., 1983), pp. 116-124
 * Hawley, John S. (Ed.), Saints and Virtues, University of California Press (1987), ISBN 0520061632
 * Urban, H. B. Avatar for Our Age: Sathya Sai Baba and the Cultural Contradictions of Late Capitalism, Academic Press, 2003, Vol 33; part 1, pages 73-94
 * Swallow D. A., Ashes and Powers: Myth, Rite and Miracle in an Indian God-Man's Cult, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1982), pp. 123-158
 * Sangha, Dave & Kumar Sahoo, Ajaya, Social work, spirituality, and diasporic communities : The case of the sathya sai baba movement, Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work, 2005, vol. 24, no4, pp. 75-88, Haworth Press
 * Kent, Alexandra, Creating Divine Unity: Chinese Recruitment in the Sathya Sai Baba Movement of Malaysia, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Volume 15, Number 1 / January 1, 2000
 * Kent, Alexandra, Divinity, Miracles and Charity in the Sathya Sai Baba Movement of Malaysia, Ethons, 2004, Taylor and Francis
 * Spurr, M. J., Visiting cards revisited: An account of some recent first-hand observations of the "miracles" of Sathya Sai Baba, and an Investigation into the role of the miraculous in his theology, Journal of Religion and Psychical Research, 2003, Vol 26; Oart 4, pp.198-216
 * Lee, Raymond, Sai Baba, salvation and syncretism, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 16, No. 1, 125-140 (1982) SAGE Publications
 * Hummel, Reinhart, Guru, Miracle Worker, Religious Founder: Sathya Sai Baba, Materialdienst der EZW, 47 Jahrgang, 1 February 1984. available online in English
 * Sullivan, Michael, C., In Search of a Perfect World: A Historical Perspective on the Phenomenon of Millennialism And Dissatisfaction With the World As It Is, Authorhouse (2005), ISBN 978-1420841619
 * Hansen, George P. The Trickster and the Paranormal, Xlibris Corporation (2001), ISBN 1401000827
 * Bowker, John, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions; 1997; (Contains an entry on Sai Baba) (added 21:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC))
 * Stallings, Stephanie,  Avatar of Stability, Harvard International Review, June 22, 2000 (added 21:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)).
 * Many sources used currently as you mentioned above such as Robbert Priddy, Premananda, The Findings, Danish Documentory are mainly the work of critics of Sathya Sai Baba. To improve the article we need use the sources mentioned in the arb.com proposal. As per Arb.com ruling Robert Priddy cannot be used as a source. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sathya_Sai_Baba_2#Robert_Priddy. "The findings" also cannot be considered as a reliable source as per the wikipedia policy of reliable sources. ::RadiantEnergy 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, Radiantenergy, you are wrong to a large extent, I purchased some of the listed books first presented by user:Jossi and they contained very little biographical information. The reason is explicitly decribed in the book by Lawrence Babb; reliable biographical information is not availabe. I have repeatedly made this clear. Btw, your arguments remind me very much of user:Jossi. Are u him? Andries (talk) 19:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Btw, though it will be clear that I am no friend of Sathya Sai Baba, I also think that White adept's are so negative that they are not NPOV. To be more specific, s/he removed all information about the organizations and re-added only the negative aspects. Andries (talk) 20:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not Jossi. I firmly believe that these sources recommended by Arbitration commitee must be seriously pursued as references. The only way to improve this article is to look at new reliable NPOV sources as references to this article. ::RadiantEnergy 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I already did try some of the sources that user:Jossi recommended i.e. Babb, Kent, Owen, Babb in Hawley and again they did not contain substantial biographical information. Andries (talk) 23:16, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Andries Andries (talk) 23:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * What I mean to say is that better sources are available for a biography of sorts than the listed ones, but all have to used with great care. E.g. Schulman, Haraldson, and the devotee book Love is My Form Andries (talk) 23:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * If Babb does not have enough information then we have to try the next source Morton, community of Bradford so on. Every source proposed by Jossi to the arbitration commitee must be explored.  After years of edit wars and 2 arbitrations its high time the arbitrators proposals are taken more seriously and given the due weightage. . ::RadiantEnergy 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I already tried both Babb (twice). I could not buy Morton Klass. I have Community of Bradford. I also bought Kent. None of them contained substantial biographical information. Feel free to spend time and effort on the rest of the list, because I think I have done enough. Andries (talk) 21:22, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I personally think that the trial by Wikipedia will continue no matter what. The reasons/causes are described in the following quote
 * "Many prominent persons in India are devotees of Satya Sai Baba and he is also instrumental to many politicians in securing votes, Baba is accordingly largely left alone by the government and, therefore, relatively free from prosecution for any alleged offense related over the Internet, which has the twin effects of leaving his detractors angry about the lack of due process and his proponents angry about unsubstantiated libel without recourse. " from Palmer W., Norris Baba's World: A Global Guru and his Movement in the book Gurus in America edited by Thomas A. Forsthoefel & Cynthia Ann Humes, published by SUNY Press, 2005 ISBN 079146573X, 9780791465738, page 119
 * Andries (talk) 21:52, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

By putting a link to the "Findings" everytime he mentions it, "White adept" makes it ranks higher in Google. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.15.105.206 (talk) 23:33, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 *  SaiBabaVictims images - File:SaiBabaVictims.jpg 
 * User White adept loaded these images in the Sathya Sai Baba article. These are images of dead people who attempted to kill Sai Baba and were shot down by security guards and also two devotees of Sai Baba killed during the fight with the assailants. Basically I have a very simple question to this group. These images are violent, gruesome with picture of dead bodies spluttered with blood. Who in this group thinks its appropriate and is a must to be included in the Sathya Sai Baba article? Please let me know which wikipedia rule says "We have to add violent, gruesome images in the Biography of living Persons". If somebody agrees with user White adept that its a must to add these images please point to me any other wikipedia article with violent gruesome disgusting picture in the Biography of living persons. Thanks. :::RadiantEnergy 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well may be the pic could be moved to Sathya Sai Baba movement. The killings were a highly publicized event: I counted 36 articles about the killing in Indian newspapers that are available online. The killings even appeared in at least one Dutch newspaper (i.e. Volkskrant). The pic is gruesome yes, but also informative and illustrative. See Wikipedia is not censored & ProfanityAndries (talk) 21:09, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

user:Radiantenergy wrote "After arbitration this article was maintained pretty well till January 07 2009." Untrue, factual mistakes crept in and remained uncorrected for many months through sheer neglect, in spite of my repeated complaints on the talk page. See Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba/Archive_11, Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba/Archive_11 & Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba Andries (talk) 20:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Currently, "Andries" and "White adept" pollutes the space where we try to discuss how to improve the article following Wikipedia policies, filling it with lots and lots of words and making this task almost impossible, and even to well-intentioned Wikipedia administrators to handle it. (Just try to visualize the talk page without their words - just as an exercise of imagination.)


 * We start just simply and carefully saying... "Hmmm... let's try to make it NPOV"... and they bomb the space with words and words and words. No problem. This is not against Wikipedia policies, right?


 * Although I am trying to make a NPOV, Wikipedia-policies-following article, I do have a positive POV about Sai Baba. I feel like opening an alternative Talk Page outside Wikipedia, only for positive POVs, so we can discuss how to make the article able to attain the Wikipedia policies standards, but without this unstoppable noise that avoids any work to be done. We can work in a new version for the article and, when finished, present the result of our collective effort back here. It's only an idea I am considering. A wiki where I would only allow who I want to participate - very different than Wikipedia - but where we would be able to discuss and advance (instead of going round in circles).


 * "White adept" and "Andries" act as children doing noise so one cannot maintain a conversation.


 * But that's not all! Since my first calm and simply contribution, I have found lots of information I didn't know. I thought that, let's say, "anti-Baba movement founders" (I even didn't know that such thing existed)... I thought they believed in what they were saying... but now I know they are merely saying lies - even themselves do not believe on that! This discover shocked me. I thought, before, that they were sincere in their misconceptions!


 * AND ALSO found lots of controversial ifnromation about Wikipedia itself - you see: this article open the doors to me for lots of "anti-Wikipedia" stuff I have never heard of before.


 * AND I MYSELF NOTICED strange things... I will mention a single one: user "Alansohn" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alansohn) edited Sathya Sai Baba article, reverting an edit that removed offensive material... Well: I invite you to see this user "contrib" history! Well... he is an expert in LOTS of subject, huh?! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Alansohn) - I am seeing right now that from 16:00 to 17:10, today, he has done 500 (five hundred) edits, from subjects from Golf, to Sea Star, to Surf Music, Spyral Galaxy, Sweetness, Auto train, Ozzy Osbourne and Names of God!


 * That's it. Thanks for the attention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.15.141.167 (talk) 17:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Luciano Pavarotti - potentially defamatory talk page comment
- An anonymous IP recently added this comment to the talk page. Note that the person being referred to is his widow, Nicoletta Mantovani, a living person. Would it be appropriate for me to remove this comment from the talk page, even though it is ostensively about 'improving' the article? Voceditenore (talk) 06:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Gone. For future reference, defamation is defamation regardless of namespace; remove it and report if it is re-added. CIreland (talk) 06:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. Voceditenore (talk) 06:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed anything which clearly violates BLP even if it's it's not defamation should generally be removed from wikipedia pages. Nil Einne (talk) 07:12, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Adam Shapiro
There have been concerns expressed recently on WP:AN/I about BLP violations on this article, specifically concerning editors adding material sourced to a personal website, adding unsourced potentially defamatory material, and using the article as a coatrack for quotations that cast the subject in a bad light. I have removed the material that was sourced to a self-published source, but it would be helpful if uninvolved editors could review the article and help to identify and resolve any outstanding issues. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Gareth Penn
Could someone take a look at this? It's about an amateur sleuth obsessed with the Zodiac Killer and has a lot of material drawing comparisons between the writing styles, age, appaerance, background etc... of Penn and the killer, who was never caught. These sections seem largely original research or synth, using on line message boards for amateur sleuths and apparent or assumed similarities between the killer and Penn to connect the dots. I should probably just delete it all myself, but have already had a run in with an article owner so it would probably be best for an admin or someone more experienced to take a look; maybe i'm wrong, and it's skirting a BLP-vio rather than an eggregious example of one. (I've edited this article a ton today, take a look if you want at the state it was in before i began).Bali ultimate (talk) 15:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * are you talking about before you started at all, say around 5 january or just today? Just wondering. KillerChihuahua?!? 16:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I might have made one or two minor edits back to January 5, but no changes that would be relevant to the overall picture. If you start before my first edit today you'll get a clear picture of what it was before my edits (a stray sentence or two notwithstanding).Bali ultimate (talk) 16:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear me, never mind. I'm gutting it - it looks like 90% of thearticle consists of "Gareth Penn used a pen name (Name) to write Article/Book" and then several paragraphs about the article or book. I've already chased after two of these and found zero reason to think the (name) was Penn. It may be; but it darn well needs to be sourced. KillerChihuahua?!? 16:58, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The article is trash - gut it. --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:13, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep, thanks for pitching in, Cameron. KillerChihuahua?!? 17:41, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Mark Thompson
This article will probably be getting a lot of attention at the moment, but the relevant section, Mark Thompson is a complete mess, full of POV statements, a poor tone, and extensive use of quoting. More sources also would be amiss. I have tried to clean it up as best as I can, but it needs a lot more work. J Milburn (talk) 22:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I scrubbed most of it as it a) had lots of POV commentary and b) belongs in a BBC specific articles not this summary bio. --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Dustin Pedroia
A recent situation has developed with Dustin Pedroia's brother. I've removed it from the Dustin Pedroia article, it was unsourced and has nothing to do with Dustin anyway. Good to keep some eyes on the article. AnyPerson (talk) 02:59, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Help needed resolving content dispute at William Rodriguez
There has been a content dispute going on for a long time at William Rodriguez between two-ish editors; both have been reverting one another for ages (they were recently issued 3RR warnings and have now agreed not to edit the article, pending mediation), and both have been accused of being socks or of operating multiple accounts/posting from multiple IPs. Since it has been going on so long and the discussion goes back pretty far, it's impossible for me to get to the bottom of it and figure out who's "right" and "wrong" (although, to be honest, both of the editors appeared to be editing rather tendentiously before some other users intervened), and both editors are repeatedly sending me and others lots of vague attacks about the other (saying the others are socks, POV-pushers, etc., without giving a lot of specifics about anything), which is continuing to muddy the whole picture. If there is anyone who is familiar with this individual and the issues about him, I would appreciate your help in trying to determine the best course of action here&mdash;both what to do about the problem editors (one user has suggested blocking one as a sock, and topic-banning the other one since he has been making good copyediting contributions at unrelated articles), and how to clean up the article.

More recent discussion is available at User talk:Manadude2 and the section immediately above it.

Thank you, Politizer talk / contribs 20:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * See also Sockpuppet investigations/Wtcsurvivor. I have seen a tremendous amount of incivility, edit warring, sockpuppetry, personal attacks, outing and intimidation threats from User:Combatant and his previous socks.  Combatant wants the William Rodriguez to be as positive for the subject as possible.  From User:Contrivance, I have seen problems with BLP editing, as the user wants to highlight negative things about the subject.  The constant edit warring is fueling things, and the article has plenty of poorly sourced material.  There also are problems involving these editors on the Kevin Barrett and Carol Brouillet articles.  I am not uninvolved in this matter, having tried to intervene in the past and editing related pages.  It would be good to get this situation resolved, but that requires input from uninvolved editors on the situation and best course of action. Any input would be greatly appreciated. --Aude (talk) 21:48, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The subject of the article denies being any of the (then) editors (personal correspondance, not usable as a source; probably before Contrivance and Combatant were actively editing the article, etc.), and claims to know the real identity of most of the parties (which is also not relevant here). I'm not sure I can be of much help.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 22:38, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Is this serious? A person who is living off a single event, and a long section of biography on a lawsuit which was thrown out of court? A list of every place he has visited or talked to since 9/11 ?  Near as I can figure, we have a non-notable for any other real reason janitor who possibly helped 15 people out to the WTC once they were at the bottom, who fell in with some conspiracy theorists and filed a lawsuit thrown out of court?  Is this actually the gist here? Collect (talk) 19:15, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I.. believe it is. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Andre Bernier
has blanked Andre Bernier, writing "In order to allow this article to conform to Wiki's NPOV, the subject of this article has withdrawn all of the material." Cunard (talk) 20:38, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I am unable to figure out from he edit history or talk page what material it is that he thinks unfair, considering he did considerable editing on the version he then blanked. If its the autobio tag he objects to, I think that is a reasonable complain. The last sentence, which he presumably wrote, needs a better source for his views, and less generalizing, but I imagine these views on global warming are the basis of the problem. He is a local station meteorologist, which is not ordinarily notable, he won two Emmy awards,. & i think that makes him notable enoguh for an article even over his objections. But what does he object to if he thinks its not NPOV?    DGG (talk) 19:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * My impression is that it is essentially the autobio tag he objects to. It was recently removed by a different account, after which I re-added it. I think he feels it would be better to have no article than one with the tag. DGG: may I ask what you mean when you say an objection to the tag would be reasonable (or am I misinterpreting)? --AbsolutDan (talk) 00:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Benjamin Walker

 * - On the 21st Rags015 added a long section called "Critcism" to the article. It was pretty strongly POV and cited no sources.  I removed the section and wrote the editor a message on his user talk page, explaining about WP:BLP and citing of sources.  The section has since been added back in with essentially no changes, and certainly no reputable outside references advancing the opinions.  I have now removed the section three times and it has been added back again.  I would like some help with this as I think I am doing the right thing, but could be wrong, and what I am doing is not working.  Thanks! -Sketchmoose (talk) 15:15, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The section is junk and should be removed on sight (as I have just done). Unsourced editorial commentary of that type does not belong on wikipedia. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, I know that; do I just continue to remove it whenever it is put back in? Thanks. -Sketchmoose (talk) 15:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * yes - it's completely unsourced, the tone is wrong etc etc. If you are worried you are getting into an edit war, bring it back here. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:41, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks! -Sketchmoose (talk) 15:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Strange case
I wonder if BLP applies here. User:Poeticbent, a notable Wikipedian (Richard Tylman) is being harassed by an anon (see for example Reliable_sources/Noticeboard) who is questioning his notability. On one level, discussing whether content is encyclopedic is fine, on another, it closely resembles anonymous stalking, and Poeticbent has several times expressed that he is unhappy at anon's behavior, tone and so on. What should we do? As I am a collegue of Poeticbent, and thus possibly biased, I'd like a third opinion before I consider banning the anon for stalking and harassment.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 02:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * First, I would like to thank Piotrus for responding to my plea for assistance, because no-one else did so far at WP:RS/N even though the issue is pressing. I’m almost certain that the anon hiding behind a throwaway single purpose dynamic IP number 99.242.160.225, who’s attempting to undermine my professional standing as a real life artist—simply because such an option is available to anyone in an “opens source” format—is already known to us from  WP:EEd. This is not a matter of reliability of external sources in an article about me. The anon already saw the sources listed in reference section of the article, not only that, he/she already saw the artwork on microfilm, but that is not enough. I’m supposed to attest that my artwork is legibly signed with my full name each and every time it appears in the print media, as if it could have been made by someone other than me. This is an unusual case of harassment involving anon's inconvenient trips to the library and using microfilm reader in an attempt to prove that I’m not who I say I am. I believe, this constitutes an effort at trying to harm a living subjects. Wikipedia is a high-profile, widely-viewed website with an international scope. The article Richard Tylman is read daily by  up to a dozen visitors who are manipulated by this anon into suspecting me of some sort of fraud on the article’s discussion page. So far only  Art LaPella cared to add a note there, to make sure that the anon knows that I'm the subject of the article, which of course (s)he knows very well already, because the connection is the only reason for this harassment. The whole issue is a major source of distress for me as the time goes on. Please put a stop to it. The least you can do is to let this user know that this is not OK. Thanks. --<b style="font-family:Papyrus; color:darkblue;">Poeticbent</b>  talk  17:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * there does indeed appear to have been over time an exceptional intensity of the attacks on the authenticity of the material. The full first name challenge is particularly strange, & does seem like clutching at straws. DGG (talk) 18:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * While the anon editor may be quite persistent in his badgering, we should note the context here: Poeticbent started a page about himself with claims such as that he has "the reputation as the “#1” illustrator on the West Coast" yet failed to mention openly he was the subject. When asked by Victoriagirl whether he was, he tried to avoid answering. Therefore, if anyone really is "manipulated by this anon into suspecting me of some sort of fraud" - it is only right they should take the whole page with a pinch of salt. To be honest though, all this is beside the point. This noticeboard is for BLP violations - and the anon user has made none. He's just demanded a very demanding level of proof for content in an article. It may or may not be inappropriately high, but it's not relevant here. Malick78 (talk) 10:13, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The above comment left by Malick78 is tendentious, mean-spirited and misinformed, very much along the lines of the anonymous attacks I've been subjected to in the past, forgive the connection. I do resent the fact that the user is constantly badgering other Wikipedians with his rants, and takes advantage of his right to post inflammatory comments at biographies of living persons, a second example being the Polish Prime Minister. For your information, I did not fail to mention anything of importance at the article talk page contrary to Malick’s accusations. I was trying to protect my right for privacy. User Malick78 who's been in conflict with me at AFD, attempts to stretch the EQ to the limit while being unreasonable at the same time. And also, he would like you to believe that AGF works in his favor here which if blatantly false considering my prior interaction with him. --<b style="font-family:Papyrus; color:darkblue;">Poeticbent</b>  talk  17:59, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This is getting slightly off topic but I'll just say two things. Firstly, as a sign of my good faith please look here - where I copyedited an article for Poeticbent back in September after the AFD took place. He even thanked me for it:) This time though, on this page, I just happen to disagree with him. No vendetta:) Secondly: as a sign of Poeticbent's lack of transparency on the Tylman discussion page, on the 20th of January he wrote "The artwork is visibly signed by Tylman in block letters.." Ie, he referred to himself in the third person. That is not helpful conduct surely. What you think of it is up to you, but I'll discontinue my side of this discussion now. Malick78 (talk) 17:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Galassi

 * In this edit labels several contemporary russian authors as antisemitic conspiracy theorists. Wording ("These viewpoints are also voiced") implicates thet all of them are at the same time conspiracy theorists, proponents of blood libel and holocaust denialists. It appears well referenced, but only some of the refs partially support the claims in the text of the article, some refs are misinterpreted and some refs to russian-language sources don't say anything like this at all. I think this is a very dangerous trend of making fake references.
 * Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn article. Makes great effort to show that Solzhenitsyn is controversial and antisemitic writer.
 * Two Hundred Years Together. It seems this article was created chiefly to disparage Solzhenitsyn and his work. Especially edits like this.
 * See also Requests for checkuser/Case/Lute88 for a results of a sockpuppetting check. DonaldDuck (talk) 02:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * All my edits are properly sourced and contain absolutely no my own opinion ar POV.Galassi (talk) 11:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Kathy Willets
Came to this by way of a photosubmission. This page could really use some extra attention and sourcing fixes please. I will cut it down a bit due to lack of sourcing. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Article was deleted by somebody else as a G10 attack/BLP violation... agree, the one source didn't support the claims.--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 23:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Rachel Paulose
Earlier today I temporarily blocked for edit warring at Rachel Paulose and removing content from the article. I feel the user may have been concerned about negative material in the article. Though much of the article is sourced, it seems to give undue weight to criticism, particularly in areas such as the "Swearing-in ceremony" section. Could someone with more experience with BLP-type issues please have a look at the article and see if anything needs be done? Thank you. -- Ed (Edgar181) 21:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Levance Fields
An anonymous poster is consistently adding a line that is not written with a neutral point of view and is not relevant. The user has been warned for vandalism, however they are using multiple IP addresses. Infamousjre (talk) 22:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * semi protected page for 10 days, 2 weeks of pretty consistent insertions of BLP issues. One bad game which generates a single sentence does not make the second best player in the nation for Turn-overs easily flustered---especially when the source cited calls him the second best player in the nation!--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 23:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Jarosław Kaczyński
There's a bit of a spat going on the former Polish Prime Minister's page on whether statements/jokes as to his alleged sexual preference made by his political opponents (and political security policy back in the day) should be included or not. An outsider's look would be appreciated.radek (talk) 09:47, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm. It's worth noting that the allegations have had wide coverage in all sections of the Polish media and have been made by a Noble Prize Winner (Lech Walesa) and a current MP (Janusz Palikot). Malick78 (talk) 16:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the statements by these two are essentially tasteless jokes about a person's sexual orientation. No reason to repeat these.radek (talk) 18:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * They may be 'tasteless' and 'jokes' but that is just an opinion open to POV like any other opinion. BLP's Well-known public figures section says: "If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it." and then: "Example: A politician is alleged to have had an affair. He denies it, but the New York Times publishes the allegations, and there is a public scandal. The allegation may belong in the biography, citing the New York Times as the source." (my bolding)
 * The situation of our article is no different: an 'allegation', 'well-documented' by every major Polish media outlet, causes a 'public scandal'. Hence, it belongs. I see no difference. Just add afterwards that Kaczynski 'refutes it'. NPOV. Malick78 (talk) 12:25, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * First, this is BLP so the standard is higher than just NPOV. Second I'm not even sure if Kaczynski refuted it. Third, it isn't really notable. Fourth, Polish newspapers tend to be very tabloidy much like some of the British Press and BLP policy specifically addresses spread of tabloid gossip. Fifth, and related to third, unlike in the example above there really wasn't any kind of scandal in this instance, just gossip. Some political opponents of JK made some jokes, some newspapers wrote about it, some people snickered, JK didn't say anything (AFAIK) whole thing went away, most people didn't care. JK's political life was not affected in any noticeable way. This is nothing like, say, Eliot Spitzer getting caught with hookers. It's just some rumors and innuendos which may or may not be true. If it was something like Eliot Spitzer then I would agree that it should be included, but it's not. Not even close. The example is not relevant. Sixth, what IS relevant is that BLP policies demand a high level of notability for inclusion of controversial material. Specifically, there is a presumption in favor of privacy, and the burden of proof is on the person who wishes to include the said material. There has not even been an attempt at trying to meet this burden, just an assertion that it should be in there and that it doesn't violate BLP. And that some newspapers wrote about it once.radek (talk) 21:42, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Could someone else take a look at this? No one has really given an outsider's viewpoint on this and it would be appreciated. Thanks. Malick78 (talk) 10:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * As an outsider, I'd say jokes don't qualify as "allegations," no matter how many papers pick up on it. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 11:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I've never called them 'jokes'. That was another editor's word for them. Be aware though, that the secret police investigated the matter - not usually something done with just 'jokes'. Malick78 (talk) 15:15, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If they're the secret police, how does anyone know what they did?! ;) &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 05:47, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The police records have been reported extensively in the press;) Besides, it's been agreed that they can be mentioned - though one editor objects to quoting them directly - an approach that I feel would add clarity. Malick78 (talk) 13:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Balachandra Rajan
— Two apparently unrelated IPs have attempted to record in the last couple of days that Rajan is dead. This is quite possible (he'd be 88), but I've been unable to confirm it. On the other hand, Rajan is not that famous and it wouldn't necessarily show up in Google News right away. Can someone at Western or around London, ON confirm this? There may have been a University announcement. Or can anyone find a reliable source online? For now I've been reverting, given that it seems inappropriate without a source. Thanks. Chick Bowen 23:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I found this, so I added it as a source. That seems sufficiently definitive to me--that list is the main e-mail list for Milton scholars, and Leonard is Rajan's colleague--but it certainly wouldn't be reliable by our standards.  No doubt there will be an obituary soon enough. What do others think? Chick Bowen 23:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Wait until there are RS to confirm death. If its true, RS will eventually pick it up. Is there a rush on this? Once you die, your'e dead for a long long time. --Tom 15:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a moot point now. Thanks for your input. Chick Bowen 01:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Derek Thompson (sports commentator)
An anonymous poster (IP 86.133.201.32) is persistently adding material which is essentially childish nonsense intended to reflect badly upon the subject. 32 edits have been made in 3 days. The editor has made no contributions to any other project.

The article is of low importance but nevertheless relates to a living person. Some of the edits have implied malfeasance on the part of the subject relating to business activities which have recently been widely discussed on a gambling website forum.

The user has twice been warned for vandalism.

Can Admin consider appropriate action in this case to (semi)-protect the article or prevent the anonymous editor adding further defamatory material? leaky_caldron (talk) 23:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * left a level 3 warning on IP's page, let us know if it continues and I will be happy to block.--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 23:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Blocked for 72 hours.--- Balloonman  PoppaBalloon 15:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

David Ferguson (impresario) / Invalid court case Document
I reviewed a pdf file on David Ferguson's bio that was posted in the Discussion Page for the article on January 27, 2009 by 'DameSmartyPants.'

The pdf is of a court document that was unsigned and uncertified by the court. UNSIGNED. Because the document is unsigned and not stamped or certified, it is not a proper document. Not only is it further evidence of the incompleteness of the court record used to validate the inclusion of this case in the Legal History, it also is potentially libelous and represents a larger 'soapbox' campaign primarily orchestrated by user 'uwishiwasjohng' (and supplemented by 'Damesmartypants') to discredit Ferguson and besmirch his professional reputation. More specific details on that this soapbox effort will be posted on this noticeboard in the near future.

But for the time being, please draw your attention to Damesmartypants' pdf document. Its inclusion compromises the integrity of the article by casting an pall of guilt on David Ferguson and his company, Buried Treasure Inc. DrJamesX (talk) 02:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)DrJamesX

Rick Warren
and are inserting language about anal sex between teenagers into an article on Rick Warren, via a made-up term that is poorly sourced, contentious, and inflammatory. This clearly violates WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:NPOV, etc.--Lyonscc (talk) 05:42, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed - the use of slurs as a means of getting at the subject of a BLP is a disturbing trend n WP, and the sooner a strong guidleine is made, the better. Collect (talk) 13:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Alan Titchmarsh

 * - This article is riddled with pranks and stupid jokes. I was alerted to it by a call from the Daily Mail. Mr Titchmarsh is apparently quite upset. I said she could quote me as "horrified" at the state of the article ... I'm at work (at lunch) and can't fix it now, but everything without a good citation basically needs cleaning out, ASAP. I've semiprotected it against the worst IP rubbish for now - David Gerard (talk) 15:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've removed some dubious, trivia and dreadfully referenced stuff. It still needs a loving re-write. Gah, oh for flagged revisions!--Scott Mac (Doc) 16:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Possible tendentious edits to two biographies
An IP that resolves to Los Angeles CA has made edits to Edward M. Davis and William H. Parker (police officer). Could someone with familiarity of LA politics and police issues please check over the edits and take action if appropriate?--Goodmorningworld (talk) 17:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have zero familiarity with these men and LA politics and police matters but I am pretty familiar with Wiki policies and guidelines and edited accordingly. Removed huge swaths of unsourced commentary/analysis. Thanks for the heads up. --Tom 17:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you went to far - including deleting legitimate external links and bibliography. These aren't living people, so marking items as needing sources would be appropriate. In some many cases, the material deleted by Threeafterthree are common knowledge in Los Angeles, and aren't controversial or extraordinary. I'm going to restore most of the material with tags for sourcing.   Will Beback    talk    18:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I probably should have just fact tagged, but there was huge swaths of original research material in both articles in relation to the overall length of the bios. Thanks for helping, --Tom 19:28, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Sam Adams (Oregon_politician)
Debate over naming a figure in a scandal. The name isn't in the article, at least not yet. Please opine about whether it should be. David in DC (talk) 17:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The contested name has now been added, by an editor not participating in the debate on the talk page. David in DC (talk) 23:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Jon Landau
Citation 7: Landau's prophetic 1974 article in The Real Paper [7], wherein he famously claimed "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen", is credited by Nick Hornby [8] and others with fostering Springsteen's popularity.

Link does not go to the article named. It goes to a Network Solutions under construction page which contains only general search links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.214.143.195 (talk) 20:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Peter Karmanos
— A user continues to add unsourced negative information to this article. A reference has been added, but it is of a message board, which I do not think is a reliable source. Additional conversation about the topic has occurred here: User talk:X96lee15 // X96lee15 (talk) 00:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It is certainly not a reliable source. I've removed the material and warned the editor. Please flag it up here again if the problem persists.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * BUMP for re-adding the info here. — X96lee15 (talk) 03:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I've warned the IP again. Next time an admin should block him.--Scott Mac (Doc) 20:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

This article needs to be gone through and given a thorough sourcing. The subject is a controversial print columnist and broadcaster. I've removed some of the more outrageous unsourced stuff, but my intense personal dislike of the man probably doesn't make me the ideal person to clean the article up. --TS 09:24, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've removed some more, however a strict interpretation of the BLP policy would probably result in most of the controversy section being removed. PhilKnight (talk) 15:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've taken more out. Tony, it should be fairly easy to be objective here. If a bit is unflattering in any way, unless it has solid referencing, take it out. I do the same for neo-Nazis, gay activists, and various scumballs of left and right. It is one of those areas of wikipedia that's fairly simple to leave a bias at the door. Unless it is sourced, err or the side of assuming it is lies.--Scott Mac (Doc) 17:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I know. I suspected that I was being far too timid. No harm in calling for help. I'm really supposed to be busy doing other stuff which is also somewhat important. --TS 20:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Ilchi Lee article
I would appreciate someone with BLP experience taking a look at Ilchi Lee. I revised a passage in the "criticism" section that directly quoted from and listed several claims made in the plantiff's origal complaint. Another editor attempted to delete it entirely, which was also reverted. The case was dismissed a few months ago, so I believe it is inappropriate to include so many unsubstantiated details, which contibute to a non-neutral tone to the passage, especially the portions that are directly quoted. The adminstrator (Steven Walling, formerly VanTucky) has a history of adding negative content to Dahn-related articles, so I would really like to get a neutral point-of-view. Does anyone know how claims made in a dismissed court case are handled in a BLP? Nicola Cola (talk) 21:14, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Susan Lindauer - Defamatory Content
Page title: Susan Lindauer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Lindauer

Defamatory and dangerous description in 1st paragraph. Use of term "spy" to describe charges against her. She was not and has never been charged with espionage. Therefore the repeated insertion of the term "spy" reflects at least a lack of information. The repetitive use of "spy" is intentional. At the time of the initial charges, "spy" was used with the most dire consequences for Lindauer mentioned. The federal government dismissed the case "in the interests of justice" on Jan. 15, 2009. In the interests of accuracy, the term "spy" needs to be removed as a description of both her charges and activities. That charge was never made.

1) The biography page for Susan Lindauer has been inaccurate since its inception, as far as I can tell.  I see corrections periodically but the original error is recreated and posted.

The opening paragraph states:

"Susan P. Lindauer aka Symbol Susan (born 17 July 1963) is an American journalist accused of conspiring to act as a spy for the Iraqi Intelligence Service and engaging in prohibited financial transactions involving the government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein."

Susan Lindauer was never charged with acting as a "spy." I'll quote no less of an authority than her former Judge on the case, former Attorney General, Michael Mukasey who said in his "OPINION AND ORDER" of Sept. 6, 2006:

"The substantive counts of the indictment charge defendant with acting as an unregistered agent of the Iraqi government in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 951 (Count Two); accepting about $10,000 from IIS as payment for "various services and activities," including her trip to Baghdad in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2332d (Count Five); and engaging in financial transactions with the government of Iraq in relation to her trip to Iraq in violation of 50 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq. (Count Six)." (S.D.N.Y.,2006, U.S. v. Lindauer --- F.Supp.2d, 2006 WL 2560622 (S.D.N.Y.) (not available from court online)

She was changed with acting as "an unregistered agent" which is entirely separate from espionage. Therefore the word "spy" is inaccurate. It is also inflammatory and could make her the target of extremists who see her as an accused "spy."

In the same "OPINION AND ORDER" Judge Mukasey explained what may have caused the use of this term. Lindauer was originally indicted with two Iraqi nationals who allegedly collected names for Iraqi intelligence on Iraqi's in the United States opposed to Saddam. Judge Mukasey said: "Their charged conduct, as explained by the government in pretrial submissions, involved principally obtaining the names of expatriate Iraqis in this country who were acting against the interest of the Saddam Hussein regime, and turning them over to IIS.  It bears emphasis here that it was never the government's theory that Lindauer participated in such conduct, or indeed that she even knew the Al-Anbuke brothers. Rather, she and they were charged together only because both allegedly conspired with IIS."

In other words, she had nothing to do with these two Iraqi nationals charged with her and nothing to do with them as to their crimes.

Including Lindauer in this indictment without tagging the specific charges for each defendant created the impression that they'd all been involved in the same crime. But Judge Mukasey spelled out what others noticed at the time of indictment -- Lindauer was not accused of the alleged crimes of the Iraqi nationals.

The last sentence in the second paragraph of the biography is both misleading, on one level, and corrective, on another. It states:

"Although news headlines frequently[citation needed] refer to her as 'accused spy', more precise journalists[who?] note that the actual charges carefully avoid accusing Lindauer of espionage."

Even as her case came back to life with the media in the past year, some news groups used the term "spy," while others did not. Instead of "more precise journalists" avoid using "spy," it should read, "Use of the term "spy" by some journalists is inaccurate. Lindauer was never charged with espionage. The continued repetition of this falsehood is an endorsement of it.   In this case, the falsehood may turnout out to be dangerous to Lindauer.

2) The federal government dropped all charges against Susan Lindauer on Jan. 15, 2006 giving this reason:  "The Government has determined that continued prosecution of this case as to LINDAUER would not be in the interests of justice." This was after five years of Lindauer demanding a trial and the government maintaining that she was not competent to help in her own defense.

I wrote the first news article about this dismissed charges here: "Feds Drop Case Against Accused Iraqi Agent" http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0901/S00210.htm

The link to the dismissal is here: http://electionfraudnews.com/News/sl/Nolle.pdf

While this is posted on a non government web page, its provenance can be determined simply by contacting the federal district court, Southern Manhattan. Lindauer's case is fascinating and important given her confinement for 11 very difficult months for psychiatric evaluation when the basis of her case, that she was a U.S. intel asset, was claimed to be a "delusion."

She fought back, never got the trial that she demanded, but is now recovering at her home. The continued inclusion of "spy," a gross inaccuracy, is not appropriate for the article. It's also not helpful to her.

Thank you for reviewing this. I'd make the edit myself but I think that the edit would just beget another edit to the contrary. This is a chance for reach final accuracy on this question. She was charged with acting as an "unregistered agent," not with spying. This has been the case since the initial indictment years ago.

MichaelCollinsDC MichaelCollinsDC (talk) 10:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've not the knowledge to get into the content. However, I've removed much of the unreferenced material from the article. This certainly needs a substantial rewrite.--Scott Mac (Doc) 11:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * NYT uses the "spy" word in a number of articles.   The NYT, last I checked, can be used as a source. Most people wold consider taking money from an "intelligence service" to be indicative of performing some work of value for that service. As for "delusion" the articles make it clear that either she is delusional (claiming to hear the voice of God) or she is deceptive in being ruled unfit to stand trial. Collect (talk) 11:29, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There's no need to give the NYT's gloss when we can state clearly she was charged as an "unauthorised agent" of Saddam. Stick to the facts, they speak for themselves.--Scott Mac (Doc) 11:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The NYT used "spy" which is what 99% of people think of when a person is paid by spies of a foreign country (and 90% would call Iraq's "intelligence servie" - spies.) And her mental state is clearly also at issue. Collect (talk) 19:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If it is what 99% think when they hear the facts, then there is no need to say it.--Scott Mac (Doc) 19:55, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The issue then is that the facts are defamatory? Collect (talk) 13:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It doesn't matter what 99% of people "think", it's about the truth. An encyclopedia is an educative tool, not a mirror of public misperception. We improve the encyclopedia by being honest and truthful, not by repeating the mistakes of others, no matter how well intentioned. NYT is a valid source, but if it's wrong we should not just close our eyes and hope, we should do the right thing, which is to publish the truth. Cottonshirt (talk) 11:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually Wikipedia in NOT about the "truth", but rather what reliables 3rd party sources have reported. --Tom 14:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Ricardo Martinelli
- There are zero verifiable sources or external references to the claims made in the article about this candidate currently running for President of Panama. // Panaprog (talk) 17:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Jonathan Thompson
Why is this man on Wikipedia? He was not a Nickelodeon presenter, as any employee of the TV company will tell you. Please call us. Similarly he is unknown to BBC GMR as we have checked with them too. Furthermore, how can he be listed in Old Mancunians and People From Salford? They are two different cities. Take all these alleged facts away and we are left with a businessman - and an unknown one at that; we have telephoned a couple of the companies the article lists. This article should be deleted to preserve the credibility of Wikipedia and to remove any impression that he has worked for our company and others.

Greg Williams (radio personality)
Greg Williams (radio personality) is being hit by several anons and new accounts with nasty BLP violations. AnyPerson (talk) 01:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC) \

California octuplets
The article looks like it needs some editor attention. For example, it currently has 3 different names for the mother Nil Einne (talk) 17:09, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * According to reliable newspaper sources, she has used all three names on different legal documents.IceCreamEmpress (talk) 02:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Flavio Briatore

 * I have removed a lot of defamatory content from the Flavio Briatore article as well as the article on his wife, Elisabetta Gregoraci. The material was sourced from an Italian newspaper, but I felt the comments were unsuitable to be included in articles on living people, as they mentioned corruption, exchanging sexual favours to obtain work, and affairs with Italian politicians.--jeanne (talk) 06:50, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Arthur Phillip Freeman
Front page news, alleged murder, no inline citations. Needs to be adopted by responsible experienced editors lest we get Seigenthalered. Skomorokh 13:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I am of the opinion that this article is inappropriate and have nominated it for deletion at Articles for deletion/Arthur Phillip Freeman.--Scott Mac (Doc) 14:30, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir‎
is the new Prime Minister of Iceland (as of 2009-02-01). She is apparently also the first openly gay head of a national government. There has been some editwaring about whether she is gay/homosexual/lesbian. However I think that this article needs a close eye kept on it for vandalism (of which there has been a little bit already). Martin 4 5 1  (talk) 02:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Rush Limbaugh needs more editors on it
This article is only being edited by editors with a pro-Rush Limbaugh POV, who typically cite only to Rush Limbaugh's own website as a source. I am posting here to ask for more editors on the article. An example is the I Hope Obama Fails section. The section is written only explaining "Rush's" side (the editors on the article call him by his first name in the text). This section only presents Limbaugh's statements that he hopes Obama fails, and why he would say that, with no explanation about what made this controversial, or who found it controversial. User:Furtive admirer, backed up by User:Soxwon, are putting in a WSJ op-ed piece that I read and has nothing to do with the "fail" controversy (that also had a race element to it), but Limbaugh continuing to criticize Obama. That's Limbaugh's job - to criticize Obama, and it is distinct from the particular controversy. User:Furtive admirer uses POV language like "The Democrats escalated the issue", and when I revert, I get bizarre talk page messages about how liberal I am and how Obama needs a teleprompter to speak. I'm no longer watching the article, so it could use other editors who care more about WP:NPOV than about their own POV. -- David  Shankbone  23:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It looks like some of that language has been removed. It's more of an NPOV issue than a BLP issue, so I think this may be the wrong board. If there is a significant dispute, the solution is an RfC or something instead of abandonment I would think. I've got this article watchlisted and occassionally read it over - it's not great, the formatting sucks, some of the sections give undue weight to various issues that aren't really biographical... But all in all, it could be much worse. <strong style="color:#228B22;">Avruch <strong style="color:#228B22;"> T 00:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It may be an NPOV issue - I don't care anymore.  If other people come on the article I might go back, but it's unenjoyable to be the only one trying to conform the article to our policies and guidelines against Dittoheads, so I give up.  -- David  Shankbone  02:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * David Shankbone's description accurately reflects my experience and reaction when trying to edit this article a few months ago. An editor is asking for help concerning universal issues about policy, bullying and ownership; why does it have to matter what board it's posted on? Flowanda | Talk 03:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds nore like seeking editors with a specific POV. Last I looked, it was quite replete with criticism of Limbaugh indeed. Collect (talk) 11:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

George Obama's arrest
See Family of Barack Obama (talkpage discussion here). An element of "recentism" and a BLP vio, due the nominal level of the charges? Or, properly notable, due its being in keeping with the tenuousness of George's notability, itself?  ↜Just me, here, now … 16:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The half-brother of the US President arrested for dope possession. I'd say notable, but not prominent. Existing as a note on a low-profile list of his relatives is probably about right. --Scott Mac (Doc) 17:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * A story like this that's in the headlines one day then gone the next is probably not notable (per WP:NOT#NEWS and recentivism), but notability is not the question - the question is BLP. We don't add rumors, claims, charges, arrests, etc., to most people's biographies.  Newspapers print claims, allegations, scandals, arrests, and minor traffic accidents of celebrities and famous people because it is news.  Many have police blotters too but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a newspaper.  Even if we treated George Obama as notable in his own right (which he is not - he's an estranged relation who the President has met once or twice), the fact that he happens to have been arrested for marijuana possession in a third world country does not illustrate his own life.  An unproven criminal claim is certainly not a reliable source that he actually committed the violation (some versions of the material people sought to add included assertions that the charges were true).  For it to be appropriate at all to an article, it has to be significant and relevant to the article subject.  It may become so in the future - perhaps he will be convicted and sentenced to a jail term.  Perhaps it will come out, in trial, that it was a false arrest for some political purposes or due to a broken police system.  We just don't know.  But a minor arrest does not make for an important or relevant biographical detail. Wikidemon (talk) 20:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry but that seems very short-sighted. As of now, any reliable source is almost certain to mention the arrest when talking about Obama's brother. It's resulted in the most anyone's talked about him to date, and how his life is treated by the media is absolutely the reason why he's notable enough to be talked about at all. There need be no inference of guilt or significance, but at the end of the day Obama has a half-brother who's known for living in far more modest conditions than the President and an arrest for drug possession shortly after the inauguration. Incidentally, if the arrest is politically motivated, then it is probably even more relevant to the article. Bigbluefish (talk) 11:37, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * How were the Bush daughter's drinking arrests covered in WP? Seems to be a fair precedent, no? And I would not call the brother "estranged" as that implies a substantial family fight, for which I see no evidence. Consistency seems at this point to be wise. Collect (talk) 11:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * News has just broken that the charges have been dropped, police saying that he had simply been picked up with people who had possessed marijuana. I think that pushes the incident from a fairly justifiable public judgement of character to a minor mix-up with a slightly tabloidy over-hype in its initial reporting. Bigbluefish (talk) 11:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  14:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Henry Siegman - "anti-Israeli" criticism
I believe the "criticism" section of Henry Siegman's bio needs some serious revision.

Poorly sourced - the whole "criticism" section refers to four articles - 3 of which are editorials and the last is arguably a fringe/extremist publication.
 * a. CAMERA - what appears to be an editorial
 * b. Middle East Quarterly - questionable quality article
 * c. Two editorials from The Jewish press - editorials are not appropriate to use as sources of a BLP, since they represent the views of the authors and the author alone

As WP:BLP clearly states, "If someone appears to be promoting a biased point of view, insist on reliable third-party published sources and a clear demonstration of relevance to the person's notability." - from what I can see of the sources, they are quite biased, and not appropriate for a BLP. If the criticism of his work is so widespread and "anti-Israeli" as the sources contend, surely better quality sources can be found? Should a BLP really be using WP:coatrack articles?

Also, WP:UNDUE - This section serves to represent a minority view. The information presented is neither proportional nor neutral. Additionally, no counter-arguments are presented to offer balance.

I really don't have the knowledge to do a major edit of this - perhaps someone can have a quick look-see? GrizzledOldMan (talk) 19:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * For the most part it looks more like a sourcing / NPOV / weight, relevance, and WP:COATRACK issue than a BLP violation. It's legit to point out that this individual has been criticized by a number of partisans on the other side of the issue, preferably by citing neutral third party sources that cover the criticism rather than citing the critics' own work as a primary source.  Repeating the criticism in detail seems to go too far, and the quote about him being an anti-semite does in my opinion cross over the BLP line.  Citing in the text who made a defamatory comment does not always take it out of BLP territory.  "X is a baby-smacker" cited to an op-ed would clearly be a BLP violation.  "Professor so-and-so claims that X is a baby-smacker" is still a problem.Wikidemon (talk) 20:29, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hold on - I'm confused here. Editorials are, by definition, representative of the opinion of the author, and nothing else. Isn't it blatantly inappropriate to use them as a source for anything? Balance issues aside, isn't it spitting in the face of Wiki guidelines to use them as reliable sources for anything but the opinion of the authors? How are they "legitimate criticism"? GrizzledOldMan (talk) 21:35, 1 February 2009 (UTC) Hrmm - misread the statement. Ignore. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 22:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Very often a person's career is significant for taking courageous, unpopular positions, and as a result it is also significant that powerful, irresponsible extremist organizations have attacked that person. The specific charges, even if they are false, are also significant, because the article must make clear whether or not they are false.


 * What would you include in Debbie Almontaser? The scurrilous, clearly false attacks are the most significant part of her biography. Nbauman (talk) 18:17, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (people taking popular positions are subject to character assassinations too) In those cases we would need secondary sourcing to show that the attacks have taken place, and they need to be filtered through NPOV, WEIGHT, BLP, etc., rather than using the attack organization's own website to self-verify its own importance.  Also, to maintain neutrality if it is a mere attack rather than a widespread criticism it would have to be covered as such, rather than recasting it as a legitimate criticism or controversy to be weighed against other opinions.Wikidemon (talk) 18:37, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Nbauman, Debbie Almontaser's article is handled quite differently. It documents the controversy in a neutral and balanced manned, focussing on the facts and sequence of events. This is entirely different from inserting a quote from an editorial, which makes repugnant claims of anti-Semitism - without providing any sort of balance. If it's a serious issue that has widespread media coverage, then it should be easy enough to find neutral 3rd party sources which document the controversy. I think we have a fundamental difference of opinion here...
 * 1. You claim that, "WP:RS doesn't mean accuracy" - and are thus quite happy to put any old rubbish which appears in the anywhere on the web, in a bio. WP:RS specifically states, a "...reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" is a key feature of a reliable source. You're at odds not only with me, but with one of the cornerstones of Wikipedia.
 * 2. WP:RS states, "Opinion pieces are only reliable for statements as to the opinion of their authors, not for statements of fact". They're horrible sources for facts or news. If it's a large enough issue, then surely 3rd party sources can be found. If there's no source to cover the claims of the issue - then it's probably too minor or simply false - and in either case, doesn't warrant inclusion in a BLP. This, however, seems to be something that you disagree with - and are quite happy to use a slanderous editorial as a source, for something as trivial as someone's ancestry. I'm not happy with this. BLPs need -GOOD- sources. Not "whatever's out there".
 * 3. not hiding - I never proposed that controversial issues should be kept out of BLPs. I stated quite specifically, and repeatedly, that they need to be done -WELL-. Using a couple of inflammatory editorials as the main sources, and a full quote from one of those - with _NO_ effort to put those claims in context - that's what I'm opposed to. If it's done in a balanced and impartial manner, then fine - it has a justified place in a bio. If not, then it has to stay out. WP:WEIGHT, WP:NPOV, WP:RS - these need to be addressed before anything is included in a BLPGrizzledOldMan (talk) 21:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Same thing in four more articles
Actually, very similar material seems to have been adde to at least two other articles, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and Rashid Khalidi. I see that there are citations throughout the encyclopedia regarding claims made by CAMERA, and that last year CAMERA was caught in a coordinated effort to plant partisan material into Wikipedia.  This brings up an interesting and improtant issue. If a partisan group criticizes a living person on its website, blog, a newspaper op-ed, etc, what if anything would justify adding a statement to Wikipedia that the organization made the attack? What if the group or person issuing the criticism are notable (e.g. a professor, politician, a notable writer)? I'm very uncomfortable that a partisan organization could bootstrap its way into Wikipedia. Do we always need secondary reliable sources of sufficient weight to cover the fact that the organization made the attack in order establish significance and relevance to the living person in question? Are there any other requirements? Wikidemon (talk) 07:17, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * ...A fourth article, Moshe Ya'alon, probably the only article where this belongs at all but it still has to conform to WP:V, NPOV, and BLP. I've edited that one accordingly. - Wikidemon (talk) 07:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * ...fifth. Reverted.  Wikidemon (talk) 07:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I got a little confused by this topic fork. I was responding to GrizzeldOldMan. But I think I addressed your concerns, Wikidemon, in the section above.


 * I don't see any problem with having an irresponsible partisan group making false attacks on somebody, and including those charges in a biography, as long as we make it clear that they are false. That's the way we handled Debbie Almontaser. As long as the false charges are well-known enough to meet WP:NOTABLE and WP:WEIGHT, they should go in the biography -- along with the rebuttal. What's wrong with that?


 * On a separate matter, I think User:Historicist should take a history class, or a college freshman English class, in which he'll learn to separate fact from opinion in his writing. It's ironic that he included a picture of Herototus on his user page, since Herodotus was noted for presenting the accounts of both sides, as he did with the story of the Persians and Phonecians, from the very beginning of the Persian Wars. Laudatur et alget. Nbauman (talk) 18:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Please note that I've referred the matter to AN/I, here. Wikidemon (talk) 23:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

NX Zero
I don't know if BLP can apply to a band, but accusations of plagiarism should apply to the members of the band, and it's being done without sources. All such claims should be removed unless verified. AnyPerson (talk) 23:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Any allegations about living people fall under the BLP policy. Unverified stuff gets removed. Offenders get warned and then blocked.--Scott Mac (Doc) 12:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Tanya Shafi
Blatant self promotion: Pages being deleted on wiki on violation of the same rule.

quote "She received a Lifetime Achievement award at Nestle Pakistan fashion awards in 2002. Currently, she's the spokesperson for Pond's in Pakistan". The awards are neither regionally nor globally recognized. The "Ponds" product is not distributed outside Pakistan

"She did her first shoot with Dawn/Herald with Fifi Haroon in 1993. Her style appealed to the elitist fashion industry but not the general public" - Again this is an opinion and NOT a fact

"She remains a popular figure on the social scene & fashion industry due to her positive image and ettiquetes".- I am sorry but what is this?. A school rating report?

In short, the self promoting article does not show that the subject of the article has achieved anything significant in her career. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.69.195.220 (talk) 09:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

"Tanya was one of the leading "supermodel" in Pakistani fashion scene during 1994-2006." - Citation needed. Source??

Dan Rooney
This entire article consists of two parts: (1) a description of the selling of the Steelers, which has very little to do with Dan Rooney himself, and (2) a discussion about a comment he made regarding a Steelers player. Being that the first is irrelevant and the second presents a very biased view of his life (a good overview of him is available on the NYT here), this entire article may be considered questionable. -- 136.142.15.231 (talk) 19:36, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
I already mentioned this on Neutral point of view/Noticeboard to be on the safe side. I wanted to point out that this article is extremely biased by references from far left websites such as CSN.com, Media Matters, The Huffington Post, and MSNBC.com to name a few. I think somebody like an administrator needs to check it out because the article is just huge with far left references. Thanks.  Lighthead  þ 04:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed, it's pretty bad. Not quite as bad as Public image and reception of Sarah Palin, but it definitely needs cleanup. Kelly  hi! 07:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Good luck whoever wanders into that outhouse. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 10:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The references look OK to me. Newsday, LA Times, Washington Post. MSNBC a left-wing extremist site? I hardly think so. It's widely considered to be a reliable source.-- Lester  11:55, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Some of the references are ok, some of the others as listed above and apparently ignored by Lester, have been discussed on the RSN and this page in the past with the result of "fine to use when stating their opinion, but not to present facts". On the page in question, they are used for facts and defended vigorously by a stalwart host of editors seeking to defend their article from any attempt at NPOV. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 15:29, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I know this is off topic, but anybody who debates whether MSNBC is far left should watch Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow (Chris Matthews a little); they are just as far left as O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are far right.  Lighthead  þ 21:29, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * On balance, MSNBC is center-left as Fox News is center-right. Certain hosts wander into the fringes, but for news coverage (not commentary) they are pretty much center like all the national media in the US.... (Yes, there is currently a tilt to the left and an insane amount of editorializing masquerading as reporting and of course Obama-worship....) Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 09:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, but importantly, they are both considered reliable sources in our sense of the phrase, at least with respect to their reporting. Editorializing, on the other hand, needs to be handled very carefully anywhere, including these sources.  The other sources (Huffington et al) are problematic.  Baccyak4H (Yak!) 14:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Another thing that bothers me is that Sean Hannity is just as bad as Bill O'Reilly, if not worse, but O'Reilly get's more play on wikipedia than Hannity. Could it be because one is more famous than the other?  Lighthead  þ 15:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Obviously papa bear is more famous. Why does this bother you?  Dicklyon (talk) 16:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't get it, what do you mean? No, the fact that papa bear is more famous doesn't get to me it's the fact that I checked out Sean Hannity's page just for arguments sake the other day, and it turns out that he didn't have a criticism page (not that he didn't have one, but in the manner that it was done (simply put, he doesn't have one)) like Pappy has. I know that I answered your question with the previous answer but I don't know what to tell you.  Lighthead  þ 09:54, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm too rather confused by your comment. Criticism pages are always very controversial and should generally be avoided as far as possible, as with criticism sections. However in some instances, the level of criticism may leave us no choice. Perhaps this is the case for O'Reilly but not Hannity Nil Einne (talk) 07:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I still don't see the point of the Hannity complaint, and the editor's pejorative use (here and elsewhere) of the O'Reilly-like "far-left" (in which category O'reilly includes the NY Times and most major American newspapers) betrays his agenda. It's not surprising, then, that another editor wanting to censor the article objected to the NY Times as a nonreliable source.Jimintheatl (talk) 14:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * To the previous comment by Jimintheatl; check out what I said on Neutral point of view/Noticeboard  Lighthead  þ 23:43, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * And as to the comment that I started by Jimintheatl, it is not an existential question, does Bill O'Reilly get more lip service on Wikipedia by certain editors, because he is more famous than Sean Hannity.  Lighthead  þ 05:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Why didn't you come out an say it in the first place then? The answer of course is we don't know and it doesn't really matter. Yes it would be good of systemic bias doesn't exist, but it does so we have to live with it. If you believe Sean Hannity needs improving then improve it. If you feel Bill O'Reilly needs improving then the same. If you feel certain editors are being inconsistent in what they feel is acceptable in articles, then explain when and what. If you feel there is a site-wide consistency in what is accepted then bring up a discussion somewhere with appropriate explaination and evidence. But asking whether systemic bias exists in editors attention to the article is pointless. Nil Einne (talk) 17:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * In my view the article is messed up from top to bottom. That's just one example of something that I feel.  Lighthead  þ 22:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Request immediate Admin review of abusive editing by 'uwishiwasjohng' on David Ferguson (impresario) article
'uwishiwasjohng' has submitted more than 30 edits since February 1, 2009 on the David Ferguson (Impresario) article. This recent flurry of editing activity is a reaction to the removal of the Legal History section in David Ferguson's article -- a section which 'uwishiwasjohng' crafted and maintained for several weeks, despite his self-admitted COI with the subject David Ferguson. This Legal History section was removed after Wiki Admin Red Pen of Doom and Wiki users Cottonshirt and Orderinchaos challenged 'uwishiwasjohng's reliance on primary source material and criticized the overall defamatory tone of the Legal History section.

'uwishiwasjohng's new strategy is to destroy the David Ferguson bio through relentless editing and unwarranted text removal. Much of the text removed was essential to defining Ferguson's career as a record producer (much of this text was restored on Feb 2, 2009, but these details have previously been removed on multiple occasions). This text was supported by valid citations which were provided in direct response to the terrific number of 'citation needed' requests with which 'uwishiwasjohng'  has stocked the article since he taking control of it back in November.

Could an admin please review this abusive editing? Is it possible to take steps to block 'uwishiwasjohng' from editing the article because of his intrusive COI with Ferguson? DrJamesX (talk) 19:25, 3 February 2009 (UTC)DrJamesX
 * &lt;snort&gt; "Relentless editing"? I thought that's what we were supposed to do on Wikipedia!
 * I notice that you neglected to mention the dozens of changes that you (and User:64.95.122.34) have made to the same article in the same time period.
 * I also notice that you neglected to mention that most of the edits to that section made by User:Uwishiwazjohng and myself were to take out the unsourced/badly sourced bits you keep adding.
 * And I have to say, in response to "This text was supported by valid citations which were provided in direct response to the terrific number of 'citation needed' requests"—most of those fact tags were added by me. And they were added because this article has never had valid citations. The citations on this article have ranged from non-existent to almost entirely a load of crap, which is why the article has been whittled away.
 * If the guy is actually notable, it shouldn't be that hard for you to find solid third-party verifiable sources (i.e., not blogs, student pages, wikis, or press releases). Could you please do that instead of reverting and griping? The fact that you add positive, unsourced information, and that User:Uwishiwazjohng and I then delete it (because it's unsourced, not because it's positive) doesn't make it a BLP issue. Dori (Talk • Contribs) 21:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI, I don't think I'm editing any more than usual, I'm just using a different style. Rather than make a general statement for a whole range of edits, I'm making specific edits and commenting specifically about what I'm editing.  So the while the number of edits has increased, I don't think that I've removed or added any more then I usually do since I've 'taken over the article in November'  --Uwishiwazjohng (talk) 05:36, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Peter Breggin
There are editors adding BLP vios. --Mihai cartoaje (talk) 23:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Some independent input here would certainly be welcome. --Crusio (talk) 23:26, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The judicial opinions are good sources and do not constitute a BLP violation. Skinwalker (talk) 23:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * They didn't even check that that's a judicial opinion. --Mihai cartoaje (talk) 23:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Who is "they"? Skinwalker (talk) 23:55, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Crusio, Rockpocket and Nmg20. --Mihai cartoaje (talk) 00:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * And how do you know that, exactly? Rockpock  e  t  18:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I have found and added two sources to this article, one is an article from FOXNews, the other from The Huffingtonpost. User:Mihai cartoaje insists on removing this now-sourced info with edit summaries stating: "Rm per BLP. The first is weasel-worded as an opinion. They don't believe what they say" and "The second is copy-pasting from QW. The author writes that he has a negative opinion because of WP. Doesn't say what his opinion would be if the article was neutral". I find this summary dismissal of material sourced to reliable sources very troublesome. --Crusio (talk) 14:56, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Sam Hoyt
A NY politician who found himself in an unfortunate situation. The information concerning his situation keeps being removed from his bio, one would assume by himself, his friends, or his staff. The information is accurate, verifiable, public, non libelous etc...How can one stop this from continuing to happen? I have only posted it once but can see that there has been an editing back and forth going on for some time. WNYBuffalo (talk) 03:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * You're being paranoid. You linked a blog file, which is unverifiable. Please familiarize yourself with WP:V for future references. I dug up a NYT article covering the material in question, which should be more suitable. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 06:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hrm - maybe you're not paranoid. Seems that controversy has a long history of being removed. Might be good to get an admin to have a poke around. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 13:14, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I will correct my cite, I meant to link it to the official sanction letter he received from the Speaker's Office in the Assembly, which apparently is no longer at that link. I will find a better source for the letter and cite it appropriately. Could you advise me on how you request admin to look at it? Please. Thanks. WNYBuffalo (talk) 04:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the current references are sufficient - the actual letter doesn't really add anything to the bio. Given that WP:RS seems to have been the reason of the reverts, hopefully that's the end of it. Admin intervention shouldn't be necessary. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 05:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I would second the lack of need for admin intervention. People have been removing a poorly sourced claim in a BLP, entirely appropriate. The fact that the claim could be better sourced is somewhat irrelevant, it's not the job of other editors to find out if there are better sources for poorly sourced claims. No attempt was made by the (single) editor who continually added the poorly sourced claim to discuss the removal while another editor did ask if there were better references Nil Einne (talk) 16:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Morton Brilliant (2nd nomination)
WP:COATRACK deletion nomination of extraordinary violation of WP:BLP1E. Systematic misunderstanding of WP:N is being used to argue that single-sentence mention in 32,000-circulation newspaper in different context justifies BLP violation. THF (talk) 10:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Single action? Nope. Mentioned multiple times in NYT for his political position unrelated to his perversion of WP. Collect (talk) 15:32, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Mentioned in passing only as shown by the fact over half the article is about the wikipedia thing Nil Einne (talk) 16:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Melanie Johnson
The information added by and various other users in the past has not been in concordance with the "Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should not be used, either as a source or as an external link." For example, adding incorrect information re:illegality of all women shortlists, when in fact they were and are legal (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/nov/15/women.gender, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1398729.stm) Tendentious editing has been carried about by this user. Unnecessary (and incorrect) personal details have been added re:Melanie Johnson's chldren. continually edits Women Politician's wiki pages with spurious or incorrect and unsourced information. ARFCRFarfcrf (talk) 10:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC) Reply: cites references which are not in the reference list and adds references which when checked are often not relevant to the subject matter at hand! can not have reviewed the history of contributions made to this living biography fully. Please see earlier editions to see the full extent.ARFCRFarfcrf (talk) 12:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Remark: The editing pattern of the above user is remarkably similar to that of User:Cookingapples. The sources used by Shakehandsman seem to be fine (UK Parlament, The Independent, subject's own homepage). --Crusio (talk) 11:27, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I've had a clean-up - ARFCRFarfcrf seems to be a SPA with some form of agenda. --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No seems to be - *is*, for reasons that are not clear to me - seems intent on removing sourced, relevent information. --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree 100% with Cameron Scott. There are also very similar edit's made by a IP address in Cambrdige which is where Johnson lives. The address is 82.16.97.122. The user/users have all had multiple warnings about their behavior yet continue to delete totally accurate and well sourced information over and over again. Also when challenged about being a sockpuppet they then made false suggestions that myself and Cruio were the sockpuppets instead! --Shakehandsman (talk) 20:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Hee Yit Foong
I would appreciate it if one or two editors could help me watch this article. She is one of a number of people involved in a recent political controversy in Malaysia, and the only one with an article, and so anons are making inflammatory and highly POV edits or borderline vandalism. I don't think it's really reached the level requiring semi-protection yet although I'm not going to object if someone does it Nil Einne (talk) 13:56, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Nestor Aparicio
The discussion page for the article (Talk:Nestor_Aparicio) has become a blog for commentary on Aparicio, sometimes defamatory and anonymous, rather than a forum for discussion of the article. Can these blog-like entries be removed? Mtd2006 (talk) 16:04, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Most definitely yes. BLP applies to all pages including talk pages and it is always acceptable to delete OT commentary on talk pages anyway even if probably best avoided when it isn't getting out of hand or isn't a BLP. In fact I've done it myself Nil Einne (talk) 16:36, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for clarifying. A lot of defamatory statements have been reverted from the article, only to show up in the discussion. And thanks for deleting... (edit conflict occurred between your edit and mine) Mtd2006 (talk) 16:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Do The Register and The London Telegraph (among others) meet WP:RS for quoting an individual?
I would have thought this to be a no-brainer but apparently another editor disagrees. See specifically this diff and this talk page where the sources were claimed to not meet WP:BLP standards. Oren0 (talk) 03:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * To expand: The original source here, is a blog from Senator Inhofe's staffer. Who is reprinting some emails, that may or may not originate from the subject. The Register (which i very much doubt is a reliable source) prints a rewrite of this blog, apparently without checking with Theon himself. Finally the London Telegraph article is an Op-Ed from Christopher Booker, who does the same. I've removed the text, since we are talking about a BLP.
 * I personally think (and have stated so on the talk page) that the originator of the emails, is probably Theon, but since we have no reliable sources to confirm this, i removed it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The sources for the requested material are:
 * An article in The Register:
 * An article in NewsMax:
 * An article by the Institute for Southern Studies:
 * An editorial in The London Telegraph:
 * An article in Right Side News:
 * I could provide others, but apparently aggregately this list does not contain "even one" source reliable enough for a BLP article. Oren0 (talk) 03:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * All of these are opinions Op-Eds/Columns/Editorials - and i very much doubt if any of them are doing other than rewriting what they found on the EPW minority blog. What we need is something with editorial oversight. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:32, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That's just untrue. Neither The Register article nor the ISS article are op-eds.  Furthermore, self-published material from reliable publications are allowable per WP:BLP "so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control."  I'd ask why you assume that op-eds in reliable publications such as those above and Fox News wouldn't meet this bar? Oren0 (talk) 03:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Does BLP really allow Op-Ed's and opinion articles (and yes - the Steven Milloy one is such as well) to be reliable on 3rd persons. And are these really under the newspapers full editorial control? I doubt it very much.
 * And i really doubt it in this case, where its pretty obvious that all of these are using a single resource to their texts: the EPW minority blog. (in the ISS case, its even quite obvious)
 * These are all political opinion pieces, with a very limited sourcing. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I think its time to get 3rd party input here, since we can alway continue bickering on the talk page. We are obviously of differing opinion - so nows the time for outside input, which is why you posted it here. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:56, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Whether you believe that The London Telegraph or Fox News or others would put their names on an article without subjecting it to editorial control is speculative and goes against WP:RS. Whether you think these sources did their homework is irrelevant as well. It'd be one thing if they all said, "according to the EPW minority, Theon said ...", but they don't, they quote him factually. We are in no position to speculate how they got those quotes nor is it relevant if they report it as true. I'm fine with an outside opinion but I already had a response written when you wrote that. Oren0 (talk) 03:57, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Could we get the name right, please? It's the Daily Telegraph (or on Sunday, The Sunday Telegraph). Just because it is published in a city doesn't mean we can arbitrarily give it the name of that city. British newspapers do not work that way.


 * Secondly an opinion piece in any publication is not particularly good source. The newspaper, Daily Telegraph, is otherwise a very good source.


 * And now framing: the fact we can state is that the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Inhofe's outfit, reports that Theon wrote them an email, from which they published excerpts, declaring that in his opinion climate models are "useless" for predicting global warming, and that scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. This news has not been carried by many sources so it shouldn't be given much prominence. --TS 06:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * But it's not just EPW who reports this. Nor is it an opinion piece, but several.  WP:BLP allows this provided the columnist is under the editorial control of the source, and I don't see why that would be untrue. Oren0 (talk) 20:43, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The US Government site (Senate) is RS for what it says was sent to the committee. It is, in fact, illegal, to misrepresent who you are when sending emails to a committee of Congress, and therefore the minority "blog" is not a "blog" in the "self-published" sense, but actually a higher level than newspaper blogs which are specifically allowed in BLPs. The requirement is that "editorial control" exist, and it clearly does. Once that is accepted, the quotes in the newspapers also reach RS as they are not citing a "self-published blog" but documents of the US Government. Collect (talk) 11:55, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * This is an incorrect assessment. Since it wasn't sent to the committee - but to the minority, or rather more specifically to Marc Morano, Inhofe's press officer. The minority blog - is a blog. It has no editorial controls, since its neither official nor is representing the committee. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * In what sense is the EPW cite not official? Here, let me check the URL: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs.  Hmmm, it appears to be hosted directly from senate.gov.  That looks pretty official to me.  I would think the US Senate would object to unofficial things being hosted there.  Especially given that they ARE the minority and could be easily overridden on their use of the domain.  This appears to be an official blog of the minority side of the EPW.  And it does have editorial oversight, Marc Morano is the editor and Inhoffe undoubtedly reads the things he posts there.  And then there's all those other sources which reviewed the material before they posted their versions.  And that's just the obvious stuff.


 * Regardless, the site is clearly a reliable source for hosting the materials they receive. So as long as the text is attributed to the EPW Minority Page it shouldn't be a problem.  The fact that all roads lead back there should be totally unsurprising since that is where Theon chose to make his announcement.  --GoRight (talk) 00:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Note: Cross-posted at WP:RS/N since there doesn't seem to be much of an audience for this matter on this noticeboard. Oren0 (talk) 03:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Let me go through this source by source. As has already been state, the Daily Telegraph is usually a RS, but it's opinion pages are not, particularly for BLPs. I hope there is no dispute that the DT is an opinion page as even Oren0 said so above. The Register is probably a reliable source for most tech issues but I would take a lot more care with non-tech issues even more so with BLPs. According to our article Facing South the online magazine was launched in 2008. As a relatively unknown online magazine I don't think it can have had enough time to establish itself as a reliable source particularly for BLPs. The blog and news letter are obviously not RS. The Right Side News, I've never heard of this and if we don't have an article and given it is a US publication that seem,s highly suspicious. Checking it out further, it is publishing nonsense about Obama's birth certificate. So yeah, clearly not a RS. So it appears News Max is the only one worth looking. News Max may be an RS, but I think care should be taken when it's a BLP. If it's the only RS then I just don't think it's enough. Furthermore, it looks to me like the 'article' is actually an opinion column. At least, while not being familiar with NewsMax, I don't get why else it would be called "E. Ralph Hostetter" and make a big deal about the author. So yeah, I don't see any RS there, particularly for a BLP. N.B. As with KDP, I have little doubt that the e-mail was sent by Theon, we still need good RSes however Nil Einne (talk) 15:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

If his own words are not reliable sources for his opinion, I'm at a loss about how we can include the skeptic "see also" link. I don't think his attacks on another living person (Hansen) should be in the article, but the rest is the normal sort of SPS background information we allow from the article's subject. The Register and Telegraph articles just show weight to his letters. His skepticism seems to be the only reason he's notable&mdash;assuming he is notable, that is. I would as soon delete it. Cool Hand Luke 02:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)