Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive86

S. E. Cupp
Repeated insertion on OR/POV non notable material. Edit warring and non use of talk page. A few more eyes would be appreciated. Thanks. --Tom (talk) 20:20, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Replied at the article talk page. &mdash; e. ripley\talk 20:49, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Hutaree
Hi, i'm kinda of on a wikibreak and limiting my time on here, but a user has recently added Ref to OKCupid and a bunch of other questionable sources that may constitute WP:OR on an individual within the movement. I dont have time to deal with it right now but is highly questionable at best. I considered posting on OR noticboard until i remembered that it fell under BLP, here is the restored material diff I'm sorry i dont have time to bicker with this guy. thank you Weaponbb7 (talk) 22:50, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, i'm kinda of on a wikibreak and limiting my time on here, but a user has recently added Ref to OKCupid and a bunch of other questionable sources that may constitute WP:OR on an individual within the movement. I dont have time to deal with it right now but is highly questionable at best. I considered posting on OR noticboard until i remembered that it fell under BLP, here is the restored material diff I'm sorry i dont have time to bicker with this guy. thank you Weaponbb7 (talk) 20:32, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales
Here is a proposal for Jimmy Wales: Following a complaint by Larry Sanger to the FBI that he later clarified as obscene visual representations of children in sexual situations being hosted on Wikimedia Commons, Wales deleted sexual images without consulting the community. After some editors who volunteer to maintain the site argued that the decision to delete was done hastily, Wales has voluntarily given up some of the powers he had as part of his co-founder status. He wrote in a message to Wikimedia Foundation mailing list this was "in the interest of encouraging this discussion to be about real philosophical/content issues, rather than be about me and how quickly I acted." See Talk:Jimmy Wales. QuackGuru (talk) 05:25, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

What is the actual question about this? Twelve minutes after you posted this here you added the content to the Jimbo Wales BLP? I have to ask you, having been here three and a half years with many thousands of edits, how come you can not yet format a citation and add it in a correct way? We don't add external links inline like that. Off2riorob (talk) 11:51, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Since this is a BLP I wanted to ensure the text was neutrally written including what was later clarified as "illegal obscene visual representations of children in sexual situations". It takes a lot of time to format references. QuackGuru (talk) 17:31, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The proposal was discussed by me at this noticeboard but no rationale objection was made. It was deleted without a specific objection to the text. The text is sourced and neutrally written so logically reason was made to not include. See Talk:Jimmy Wales for the discussion. QuackGuru (talk) 17:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Discussion involves at least two people. Actually you have presented a wrong diff, the content was removed in this diff with an edit summary of, " Based on BBC rehash of Fox report - not a neutral source - more current reports have Fox involved - don't insinuate kiddiporn allegations when none have been established" you replaced it without discussion and I removed it in support of User:Simonxag's position.Off2riorob (talk) 19:10, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The Fox news source is being used at Larry Sanger with your blessing. The BBC article meets V. The text is sourced and faithfully written to the source. Don't insinuate I added original research. QuackGuru (talk) 19:13, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It is actually much more relevant to the sanger article, the comment about insinuation is not mine, your addition to the wales article gives far to much weight to the issue, it is more about sanger, all wales did was remove some pics and got reverted, normal issues at wikipedia, sanger reported to the fbi so the content is about him. Off2riorob (talk) 21:19, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There has been a lot of press coverage about Wales on this issue. Wales' role has changed which is notable. The BBC and other article are making the claims not me. so there was no insinuation on my part. It can't be a BLP violation when it is sourced and neutrally written. For the Sanger page, it did not have the clarification which makes it not neutrally written but you supported the biasely written text. QuackGuru (talk) 18:08, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There has been press coverage, not major but minor as it is a minor issue as I said much more to do with Sanger's life story that Wales. Wales role has not changed at all, a couple of very minor issues on minor wikis, his fundamental role has not changed at all, also Sanger made a report and it has not been actioned at all, which is a BLP issue, POV accusations and claims of illegality that came to nothing. As for Sanger that is discussion for the section below, I just supported the citation for that, and I still do. Off2riorob (talk) 18:28, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Wales' Status has changed according to the reference. Sanger made a report which is sourced according to V which is not a BLP issue when it is neutrally written. As for Sanger that is discussion for the section below, Off2riorob supported a BLP violation against Larry Sanger when the text was not neutrally written. QuackGuru (talk) 18:37, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Wales status has not changed in any notable way. As for Sanger, I still support whatever it was. I also note that you have added the content to the Criticism of Wikipedia article, where you are the third most major contributor of all time to the article, at least that is not a BLP. Off2riorob (talk) 18:45, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Off2riorob acknowledged it is not a BLP at the Criticism of Wikipedia article. When that is not a BLP at Criticism of Wikipedia it can't be a BLP at Jimmy Wales. Wales status has changed which is notable according to reliable sources. As for Sanger, Off2riorob supported whatever text it was while ignoring the BLP violations even though it was not an accurate representation of the sources and contained an unreliable reference. QuackGuru (talk) 19:03, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Please don't push words into my mouth. The criticism of wikipedia article is not a blp article. I support the additions to Sanger and don't see them as BLP problem at all. I also notice that you are the vast majority contributor to the Larry Sanger article, sure you must have been asked this before but your edit history is reflective of a Single interest account as regards Larry Sanger and criticism of wikipedia. Have you declared a conflict of interest? Off2riorob (talk) 19:10, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Lisa Ling
I doubt that she was born in 1900! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Miriam Feldstein Case (talk • contribs) 05:37, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Reverted by . Aditya Ex Machina  09:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Sol Hoopii
The talk page has erroneously been tagged re bio of living persons. Sol Hoopii died 1953. I am unable to remove tag. Maile66 (talk) 21:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I just changed the talk page template, hopefully thats ok now? Thank you. --Tom (talk) 23:28, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Jeff Perry (politician)
Hi. This is an edit dispute. An IP keeps adding an unreliable source, and refuses to discuss at the talk page. See here. Thanks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:33, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Some help with this would be much appreciated. Thanks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:53, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * FYI, I've just requested semi-protection.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The semi-protection was rejected, the vandalism continues, and the vandalism includes criminal accusations. Is there something else I'm supposed to do here?  If not, I'll just let the vandalism pile up.  It's not my BLP after all, so it's no big deal as far as I'm concerned.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:20, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * That whole section is just a partisan slur, it take up as much space in his life story as large sections of his political career. His involvement was minimal and that whole section is valueless scandal mongering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Perry_%28politician%29#Wareham_police_controversy I recommend trimming it for weight. Trimmed. Off2riorob (talk) 18:15, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thx.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * No worries, if the content is replaced we should direct the IP here for discussion. Off2riorob (talk) 19:57, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Diane Abbott
I just wish to draw some attention that this article appears to be far from neutral in its description of Diane Abbott's career. There is undue attention given to minor issues as "Controversies" and repeated poorly sourced or unfounded accusations of racism. In addition the "Controversies" section makes little effort to present a balanced view on these issues and reads like a list of accusations. The piece does not have the tone of a balanced autobiography.

I have made some effort to remove what is clearly unsourced or unfounded, but the whole piece is, in my view in need of significant, urgent overhaul, particularly in light of her now raised profile as candidate for Labour leader. Particularly as I have already witnessed erroneous information being quoted from Wikipedia on blog comments etc.

143.117.45.114 (talk) 14:57, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have only found two refs which looked suspect, one was to answers.com the other to a blog. I have removed them an tagged If you have a reliable source for her candidacy for the labour party leadership fire it in man mark nutley (talk) 17:45, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Article has been tweaked a bit since its higher prominence since Abbot announced she would stand for leadership election of the labour party. Article is now semi protected for one month by the Administrator User:HJ Mitchell . Off2riorob (talk) 17:56, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Abhisit Vejjajiva
Some of the most contentious information on here is very poorly sourced. For example, the line "Among the dead protesters were soldiers dressed in red shirts - the Army did not clarify what they were doing among the protesters" in the last introductory paragraph cites four different sources, three of which mention nothing of the kind, and the one which does (the first) does so in a bit-piece article on a different subject, and states only that soldiers were in disguise, not that they were wearing red shirts (an important distinction given the background to this issue--wearing red shirts implies specific attempts to infiltrate the protesters, whereas if they had been wearing black disguises, they are likely disaffected elements of the Thai military not controlled by the government led by the subject of this article).

In the same paragraph, the line "Members of Abhisit's government were implicated in the 2009 attempted assassination of PAD leader Sondhi Limthongkul, although the government blamed Thaksin" is possibly libelous, and again is not supported by any of the three sources cited. The third source supports the second contention of the sentence (that members of government accused Thaksin Shinawatra of masterminding the assassination attempt) but none of the sources support the libellous contention that "member of Abhisit's government were implicated" in the assassination attempt.

Much later in the article, under the section "Thaksin asset seizure court case", the line "Twenty-three people were killed in the conflict, including a Japanese cameraman, a number of uniformed soldiers, and an unknown number of soldiers dressed in red shirts" is included, again citing multiple sources, none of which confirm any soldiers dressed in red shirts, or indeed any information other than that a given number of people (ranging from nineteen to twenty-four, depending on source) were killed, and one was a Japanese cameraman.

These issues are present throughout the (unusually long) article, even including the final section, titled "Unusual wealth" which claims "The result of the government's investigation into Abhisit's alleged unusual wealth was not revealed" while citing a source that never mentions any such investigation.

71.57.71.46 (talk) 20:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I removed all mentioned. The article is excessively long with multiple issues. Off2riorob (talk) 17:53, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Edwin Ubiles
Why does wikipedia waste space on an unknown college basketball player? Unless he does something that is of importance, he should not have an entry on this site. If that is the case, then perhaps someone should create a wikipedia entry for EVERY NCAA college basketball player. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.64.75.56 (talk) 08:42, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This is the wrong venue. If you feel this person isn't notable enough for an article go to WP:AFD and nominate it for deletion. Exxolon (talk) 16:42, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Sent to AFD for deletion discussion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Edwin_Ubiles Off2riorob (talk) 17:34, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Robert Amsterdam
It may be worth a few eyes on the Robert Amsterdam article for a while. Amsterdam is exiled Former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra's lawyer and spokesperson. He's been in the media recently arguing the Red Shirt's side during the recent demonstrations/army actions in Bangkok. I noticed that a Bangkok based IP made this potentially contentious edit. There may be more in the post. There's also this entertaining BLP violation from January. There are also things like 'The firm's unique niche of handling politically difficult cases in some of the most challenging investment environments'....  Sean.hoyland  - talk 11:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Article has multiple issues. Uncited claims, inline links, all citations unformatted, excessive promo fluff and so on. Off2riorob (talk) 19:22, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Rick Scott (businessman)
Hello, earlier today I put a comment on the Discussion page for Rick Scott (businessman) because I am very concerned that it is unfair to him. It is a matter of great concern to me because I work with him. However, I understand that if I make changes directly that may cause additional trouble, and I wish to avoid this. Mr. Scott is now running for Florida governor, and it is a very serious problem that this article seems to be written by his political opponents and does not present information neutrally.

There is too much hostile language to deal with it all now, but I did make 3 suggestions to the article today. I hope that someone will recognize these points are a serious issue and take care of them. If there is a better way to go about this, I would appreciate information about that as well. Thank you. --Thirteenth Florida (talk) 21:46, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, this is just about the correct place. American political candidate with heaalthcare issues, could any neutral USA editors have a look? Off2riorob (talk) 13:16, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Debi Nova
The article has a good summary at the beginning, with a couple of sources. After that, it goes completely downhill into something that seems to be written exclusively by her label's P.R. team. It's in urgent need of attention and citations. I'd do it myself, but I'm a new user and it's not a question of deleting the article, it's about trying to improve it. If the whole thing is simply deleted, no one benefits. Wholeheartedly wishing you fix this soon, --Conoceymedio (talk) 23:29, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for this notification. The large addition from an IP account was a copyright violation from http://www.hitlab.com/83362/interviews/blog/33454 I have reverted the article back to pre-the addition and notified the IP about our policies and guidelines. Off2riorob (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Nastassja Kinski
removed a sourced rumor in this edit. I reverted him, and he reverted me back. I have no problem either way, I would just like to know what is correct according to Wikipedia policies and guidelines, both in general, and in this specific case (with its specific sources) in particular. Debresser (talk) 08:50, 23 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I saw that edit of yours (not wherever it first came from), and thought it quite inappropriate, as Hullaballoo's edit summary states. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:22, 23 May 2010 (UTC)


 * That paragraph was a very selective and distorting reporting of what was actually in the interview. IMO that was a BLP violation. Hans Adler 12:21, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

It does seem to be weakly claimed/cited and the fact that you have to add "rumored" and "denied by the subject" is reflective of the value of the actual content, cited to that opinionated video and a autobigraphy, doesn't also seem well known either, titillating content. I would also remove it for discussion and consensus., which in this case seems to be to exclude. Off2riorob (talk) 14:15, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinions. I got the point. Debresser (talk) 22:08, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Damishi Sango
The subject of this article is objecting to it, with some justification. See User talk:Aymatth2 I created the article by patching together material from newspaper stories, which gives a rough, unbalanced and incomplete result. The subject replaced that version with a copy of his biography from http://damishisango.com/the-man/, much more complete but decidedly fluffy and dropping information from reliable independent sources. Not sure how to proceed... Aymatth2 (talk) 13:43, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It is just a cut and copy copyright violation from http://damishisango.com/the-man I reverted back to your version and I have left him a note on his talkpage. Off2riorob (talk) 16:49, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

If you have a problem with your research been replaced, I am quite happy to leave the information you posted there in. But what I cannot do is to leave your rough picture which paints a wrong image of the subject. The information on www.damishisango.com is a much more complete biography of the subject. I will do another edit of the article, ignoring your own edit and sources, but adding to it my own edit and sources in order to provide a much more balanced and complete picture of Damishi Sango. Samejohnton —Preceding unsigned comment added by Samejohnton (talk • contribs) 18:33, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting, please take a little time to read the links I placed on your talkpage, as I pointed out there "your contributions are welcomed but as you have commented that you are the subject of the article here you are discouraged from editing the actual article" .. your contributions are welcome please present your desired alterations, improvements and supporting citations here or on the article talkpage for discussion. Off2riorob (talk) 19:28, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Article has been semi protected for a week, repeated insertion of cut and copy copyright violations. Off2riorob (talk) 22:01, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Art LaFleur
There seems to be some editing that continually tries to add some information about a nonexistent nephew. This ip is public and continually makes the fake changes. It needs to be blocked from editing as it continually defaces the article. Possibly, this article just needs to be locked, and definitely closely monitored. 16:43, 23 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.227.13.115 (talk • contribs)

Hi, seems to be an IP66 that has also added similar false additions at onther articles and has mostly done silly edits and slipped under the radar. He hasn't edited for a couple of weeks and never may come back again, if he returns and continues to add false details to article we can look at blocking him then. We can't lock an article I am afraid. I have also added it and the IP address to my watchlist. Off2riorob (talk) 17:57, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Michael Pousti
This article should be combined with - cf. . Mr. Pousti is really only well known for being President of SMS.ac. The article needs some serious editing the last paragraph as well.

Agreed, he does not look to be individually notable, any comments? Off2riorob (talk) 19:40, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Mordechai Vanunu - editor adding sources from her own websites
Concerns about sourcing, I just remove a load of links to a blog, and I have also seen, & left, links to another site eg owned by the blog owner who is also heavily editing the article, Eileen fleming. Dougweller (talk) 20:00, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think those citations are reliable and have removed them and left the editor a note on her talkpage with links explaining the issue and asking her not to replace them without support at the WP:RSN. Off2riorob (talk) 22:21, 23 May 2010 (UTC). Off2riorob (talk) 22:21, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

1986 Hvalur sinkings – categorising an event as terrorism


This article needs attention. It is about two Sea Shepherd members scuttling two unmanned whaling boats in a dock. At the time the Icelandic government called it "terrorism", which is of course hyperbole. It is at most "eco-terrorism", and that only because the term has been defined so widely as to include a lot of stuff that is not terrorism in the usual sense.

Now I am having a little edit war with the above user, who insists on applying Category:Terrorism in Iceland to this article, which mentions the two executors by name. The name of one of the two is David Howitt, which was linked, presumably incorrectly, to David Howitt (an English footballer). The other is Rod Coronado, whose article is in Category:Terrorism in the United States, but apparently for better reasons.

My reading of WP:BLP, especially in conjunction with WP:WTA, is that we simply cannot categorise this incident in this way. I would appreciate comments, and additional eyes on the article. Hans Adler 22:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I've added more explanation to Discussion. I still submit that the article meets WP guidelines from WP:WTA: If a reliable source describes a person or group using one of these words, then the word can be used but the description must be attributed in the article text to its source, preferably by direct quotation, and always with a verifiable citation.  Reputable news sources report organs of the Icelandic government declaring the act "terrorism".  The individuals in question are not referred to as "terrorists" in any form, but the category Category:Terrorism in Iceland recognises that the Icelandic government publicly declared this event such.  This is also important in that it ties the article into the general Category:Terrorism by country tree.  Until such point as we have a Category:Ideologically-motivated destructive acts by country, the above is the closest we have.   If all categories with the word "terrorism" are renamed to some mutually agreed alternative, I'm cool with that, but in the meantime there's no other cat which groups such acts together. MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:13, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The Icelandic government was a significant player in this event. When the US government declared waterboarding not to be torture we didn't take them at face value. We don't categorise evolution as pseudoscience just because some physicist-turned-mad or a large creationist organisation says so. Should we apply all categories to United States that describe the various insults that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has applied to that state? Similarly we don't categorise an event as terrorism just because a country has badmouthed activists who threaten their unsustainable exploitation of a natural resource. Not even George W. Bush is in Category:War criminals. That's because the category was deleted as a BLP nightmare after being (ab)used in just such a way that you are using Category:Terrorism in Iceland.
 * This is a project to write an encyclopedia. I know that some people are working on a parallel project, an ontology. But that's not why we are here and most people are simply not interested in that. Your concerns are very minor when compared to the BLP nightmare of pretending that an incident in which a living person was involved was actually terrorism (as opposed to being characterised as such by the targeted government).
 * On a strictly formal level, you don't need reports of the form "A called X an act of terrorism." Of course you need reports of the form "X was an act of terrorism", from a neutral, reliable source. But in this case even that would not be enough because it's clearly at most a borderline case. If you want to rename the category to make it more inclusive, go ahead. But we don't violate BLP while working on a longterm solution to some problem that exists only in the mind of some Wikipedians. In the meantime there would be a real danger of incidents such as the English ex-footballer Dave Howitt being sent back from a US airport because someone googled him and found an association with terrorism that wasn't just about a different person with the same name (although until a few minutes ago there was a misleading link), but was even mere hyperbole in the first place. Hans Adler 23:07, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

From my point of view, calling this a BLP issue is a bit of a red herring. It was eco-terrorism, it happened in Icelandic territory, so I see nothing wrong with using a category that is called "Terrorism in Iceland". A category of that type on an article about an incident is not the same as and in my opinion is a far cry from calling the perpetrators "terrorists". If the user doesn't like the categories in, there is an obvious solution, and that is to nominate them all for deletion, and see if there is consensus to delete them rather than deciding unilaterally that one or more of them is problematic. Good Ol’factory (talk) 10:15, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * This particular article is on my watchlist and this particular article has the BLP problem. We are definitely claiming that two named individuals were involved in an act of terrorism when objectively the most we can say is that it was an act of eco-terrorism. And that some newspapers have reported, as if it was odd, that certain people called it terrorism.
 * I have proposed the category Category:Terrorism in Iceland for deletion, but only because it is now empty and because I want to make sure that the empty category is not abused in the same way again. Every normal person would be glad that Iceland has no terrorism, rather than make things up and try to present other things as terrorism.
 * Many instances of eco-terrorism are not terrorism at all. Not even the attack on the bank in Athens, where three people were killed, falls under the common definition of terrorism, so it makes no sense at all to include relatively limited action against things that didn't even endanger a single person and was obviously never meant to terrorise anybody. Hans Adler 19:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * What I've stated is just my opinion. I came to this "dispute" without any pre-conceived notions of the incident or who was correct and who was incorrect, but I have to say that I largely agree with User:MatthewVanitas's position. I understand you feel that using the category in this way is an "abuse", but there are two of us so far who do not agree. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Allow me to quote from eco-terrorism:

Therefore the mere fact that acts of eco-sabotage are nowadays called "eco-terrorism" does not imply that they are also terrorism. Let's look at terrorism:

Therefore we must distinguish whether basically everybody calls an act terrorism, or whether newspapers merely report that certain sources (e.g. the Norwegian state) have called something terrorism. Moreover, we should consider the standard dictionary definitions of terrorism, see wikt:terrorism, none of which covers normal cases of eco-sabotage, like this one.

It is unfortunate that this noticeboard is nearly defunct at the moment, perhaps due to the cleanup of unsourced BLP articles. But I will edit war against anyone trying to restore the category if these points are not addressed. Hans Adler 17:55, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I think you need to chill a bit. Announcing that you "will edit war against anyone" trying to restore a category that you believe should not be on an article is a good way to lead to events that will get yourself blocked. It's just not productive. You're basically saying, "I'm right and I will edit war with anyone who disagrees". A little humility and an acknowledgment that none of us are perfect and necessarily 100% "correct" in all our opinions could be useful. Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:44, 9 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Edit warring to keep a BLP violation out of an article while trying to draw the attention of the wider community to the matter so that consensus can be reached is explicitly authorised by the BLP policy, see WP:GRAPEVINE if you really don't know that. Posting here was a necessary step for doing that. Of course the assumption of the policy is that there would be neutral input and reasoned debate. Unfortunately that does not seem feasible at the moment. The only responses so far were from MatthewVanitas, who was involved from the beginning (and indeed caused the problem), and from you, who apparently came here via my category deletion request, initially only complained about my "emptying" (with a single edit) the category before asking for deletion, and have not even tried to make a case that classifying this act of sabotage as terrorism accurately reflects the way it is treated by reliable sources. Hans Adler 08:18, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

"Edit warring to keep a BLP violation out of an article while trying to draw the attention of the wider community to the matter so that consensus can be reached is explicitly authorised by the BLP policy" ... Unless of course it's not a BLP violation. If there's a dispute as to whether or not it is and you're in the minority, there is a chance that it is is not. Which is why I suggested you should consider that possibility. Let's just say that you don't appear prima facie to be terribly open minded about this, which could deter a person from making the effort to try to persuade you of anything. To be brief—it's unlikely that a category that designates an incident as "terrorism" when the article text and sources classify it as "eco-terrorism" constitutes a violation of BLP. I understand that you disagree, but I don't think you're on terribly solid ground saying you will edit war over the issue, because it's entirely possible you are wrong. You can try to pooh-pooh the contributions of the editors who participate here—which is very convenient for you since you disagree with them—but in the end, you have to work with the opinions that are shared. Good Ol’factory (talk) 08:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Please read the article. It says nothing about "eco-terrorism" because that's not in any of the sources. The event happened more than 20 years ago, and there is a reason why "eco-terrorism" is in Category:Political neologisms, along with expressions such as Flying while Muslim, McWorld and Rogue state. In contrast to "terrorism", which is a neutral description of a despicable method, "eco-terrorism" is a dysphemism. I don't know if it started as a term for a particular type of terrorism and its meaning was later widened beyond reason, or if someone wanted to coin a word for a particular type of activism and chose the most ominous-sounding one he thought he could get away with ("ecologically-motivated mass murder" or "eco-fascist bomb throwing" might not have been accepted as uncritically).
 * The unreflected assumption that something is terrorism just because it's called "eco-terrorism" is of course precisely what the governments pushing this term want. Reliable sources are falling for this game to some extent by using the term without reflection. Reliable sources tend to accept uncritically both the ridiculously wide (when judged by its etymolgy) definition of this term and any claims to the effect that eco-terrorism is terrorism. What they generally don't do is put these two things together and claim that every random act of sabotage is terrorism when it obviously isn't. Doing that kind of thing is a speciality of Wikipedia editors, and is so popular that we need the explicit prohibition in WP:SYN. Hans Adler 09:00, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

You can presume that I have read the article. You make many arguments as to why you are right and other editors, governments, etc. are wrong and that things should be changed to suit your opinions, but your central problem from my point of view is that this is not a BLP issue. But despite this, if you could even acknowledge the possibility that you may not be 100% correct, I would consider your posting this on the BLP board to have been worthwhile. Regarding lack of participation, I think one way to encourage participation in things like this is to avoid the War and Peace problem and try to keep things concise. Nobody much likes to wade through a bunch of writing to find the central issues. Much of what was said here was irrelevant, which I regret getting sucked in to. Good Ol’factory (talk) 09:13, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Really? "It is at most 'eco-terrorism'"? "At most" implies that it is not terrorism. That does not matter though:
 * Sources called it terrorism and since categories are navigational there shouldn't be a problem. It isn't a label. If it assists a reader in navigating the topic area then it should be in. If eco-terrorism is a subcategory of terrorism then it should be sufficient. If the eco-terrorism category is ever deleted than terrorism needs to be substituted. Another subcat should be on the same footing with the subcat also mentioned but that might be an Mos and not a BlP issue.Cptnono (talk) 09:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * That's bad wikilawyering. The fact that Category:Eco-terrorism is a subcategory of Category:Terrorism doesn't prove every instance of "eco-terrorism" is an instance of terrorism. In fact most are not. We recently had an RfC on the similar case of Ghost, which was categorised in Category:Paranormal, a subcategory of Category:Pseudoscience. The result was that while both individual categorisations are fine, it would be incorrect to categorise the article directly as pseudoscience.
 * Almost(?) all reliable sources did not call it terrorism. Sources reported that the Norwegian government and Greenpeace called it terrorism. Those are not neutral parties at all, and the reliable sources did not appear to take that claim seriously. Hans Adler 09:50, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Accusing someone of wikilawyering is bad form and you have been around long enough to know better. Do it again and I am dragging this to another noticeboard.
 * And you didn't read my comment at all it looks like. Eco-terrorism is fine in place of terrorism. If another subcategory is available then it should be considered as well.Cptnono (talk) 09:58, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You can't get around providing reliable sources for the claim that this act of sabotage was terrorism by a WP:SYN argument that abuses our category system. Trying it anyway is bad wikilawyering. You have the experience to know that, so it must be allowed to point it out when you are doing it anyway. If I felt it was sufficiently egregious, I would take you to ANI for it. But it isn't. If you think my pointing it out in the wrong venue is sufficiently egregious, take me to ANI. That's fine for me because then the behaviour of all parties will be examined.
 * "If another subcategory is available then it should be considered as well." That is precisely the point of this section. This discussion is about Category:Terrorism in Iceland, of which the page under discussion was the only member. Hans Adler 10:13, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It isn't SYN at all. Sources call it terrorism. Enough of them do so that it is not fringey so calling it SYN applies to how to discuss it in an article but not as navigation. Enough sources are available calling it terrorism that disregarding it is a disservice to the reader. So if Category:Terrorism in Iceland survives deletion (why is it at deletion anyways?) and is at the same level subcat wise as eco-terrorism then it is MoS not a BLP concern. I would assume that both should be mentioned.Cptnono (talk) 10:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * "Sources called it terrorism." – "Sources call it terrorism." – Don't repeat it, WP:PROVEIT. The sources in the article don't call it terrorism, and trying to get around that obstacle with rhetorical tricks is not acceptable. Hans Adler 11:15, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

<- The problem is that reliable sources call all sorts of things terrorism and there isn't a way to attribute category membership to a source e.g. Communist party of China's actions against Falun Gong, Falun Gong's actions against the Communist party of China, Sri Lankan government's actions against the Tamil Tigers, Tamil Tigers actions against the Sri Lankan government, Pakistan's actions for and against all sorts of things, Venezuela expelling the Israeli ambassador for use of state terrorism in Gaza etc etc, I could go on endlessly. It's a can of worms.  Sean.hoyland  - talk 10:14, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Although WP:TERRORISM has BLP implications when living people are involved, I think that guideline and the logic behind it are enough to resolve this issue. We cannot reasonably say, or categorize, the event as terrorism.  Governments and their agencies do indeed get mileage out of calling their adversaries terrorists.  The most we can say in the article, and a far more encyclopedic approach, is to simply note that the government of Iceland has called the incident an act of terrorism (assuming it is adequately supported by the sources).  Better yet, mention the specific way they did so.  However, also note that adding an article to a category (or Wikiproject) on terrorism does not necessarily label them as such, although it may depending on how it is done.  - Wikidemon (talk) 11:00, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it seems that this thread is finally getting some attention from editors who were not previously involved. In my opinion creating a category named "Terrorism in Iceland" for the sole purpose of putting a single page in it that is actually only about a rhetorical accusation of terrorism is akin to creating a category named "US Presidents with uncertain place of birth" for the obvious purpose. I have just gone through all pages that are in Category:Eco-terrorism, and I have found only one other article there that is also questionably in such a terrorism by country category. (There are a number of clear cases of terrorism which are categorised as such. All the clear cases of no terrorism are not categorised in terrorism by country categories. There is one borderline case categorised in that way. In a previous probe into some terrorism by country categories I found only very few cases that were miscategorised.) Hans Adler 11:11, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, categorization is not a label. Maybe this would be better at Village Pump if there is so much confusion? We can add sources from Canada, Iceland, US, and who knows where else that say it is terrorism. But it does not matter because it is not a label. In fact, the article should detail that it has been called terrorism more. But that isn't the discussion. Is the discussion really Terrorism in Iceland? It looks pretty close to jumping boards since that cat is up for deletion. The country does not pop up with terrorism in news searches but that is again another discussion. So Eco-terrorism seems obvious (not saying it is just saying it has been called such in sources). If Terrorism in Iceland is a valid cat then it makes sense. Wikilawyering has been tossed around in this conversation but it is pretty apparent to me that it is a wikiclusterfuck.Cptnono (talk) 11:20, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This is beginning to look like a serious case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. If there are reliable "sources from Canada, Iceland, US, and who knows where else that say it is terrorism", then put them on the table and you win automatically. But make sure that they talk about terrorism, not eco-terrorism, and that they don't simply report an accusation without endorsing it. Hans Adler 11:23, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The real problem here is abuse of language. The politics or correctness of either side are irrelevant. For this to fit the definition of terrorism, it would have to be be intended to cause serious injury or death to innocent persons. I could see calling this an act of vandalism, sabotage, or even war, but calling it terrorism is simply an error, so removing the "Terrorism in Iceland" tag is just a fact correction, not a political statement. (Also, this entire discussion seems seriously misplaced as a BLP topic.) Dusty14 (talk) 16:05, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * BLP applies in all articles, not just biographies. The two people who committed this sabotage are named in the article. The name of one of them is David Howitt, and for months we had a misleading (I assume) link David Howitt in the article. (The other one is Rod Coronado, but given what else he has done I guess the article under discussion is at most a marginal problem for him.) If someone wrote an article about something I have done and put it into a terrorism category, I would be very worried. I am not planning to travel to the US anyway, but in that case I would not dare do it because there is always a chance that someone googles at the border. Hans Adler 18:24, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I have just learned that we don't know the name of Coronado's accomplice. He is being referred to under 3 1/2 different, relatively common, names, so he is practically anonymous. I didn't know this when I posted here. Hans Adler 20:21, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

There is currently an ANI discussion related to this matter, see WP:ANI. Hans Adler 11:39, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * "If there are reliable 'sources from Canada, Iceland, US, and who knows where else that say it is terrorism', then put them on the table and you win automatically." Done. Read the article (someone else added it not me). This isn't wikilawyering and this isn't bias. It is just the way it is. Sources call it terrorism. I really don't think it was terrorism as in 9/11 or other stuff but the category is a navigational tool based on how the sources discuss it. Your continued forum shopping and accusations don't change that. You are battling with two admins (admins screw up sometimes so I understand), reporting yourself at 3rr, and forum shopping. Get it together.Cptnono (talk) 13:25, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Many of the sources that have been added recently are not accessible to me. Those that are generally give the impression that this cannot simply described as terrorism, note e.g. the inverted commmas in "Iceland adventure ‘easy’ for whaling ‘terrorists’". Under these circumstances I would say you really need to say which of your sources supports your claim that this was described as terrorism, and give a bit more context. E.g. the title "No cause can justify terrorist acts" sounds promising in this respect, but without more context it's impossible to say. This might be an editorial, or it might be one of those frequent cases where the author had no control over the headline, which is catchy but incorrect; or it might be about something entirely else and merely mention Iceland in passing. Hans Adler 13:45, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Note also that saying that something is terrorism is not the same as casually referring to something as terrorism. Context is important to tell whether an author meant to seriously characterise something as terrorism or merely used a printable equivalent of words such as "shithead" and "motherfucker". Another way of saying this: "Terrorism" has a wide range of meanings, and it's not OK to simply dig out the few sources that use the term in the widest sense imaginable. I am a bit suspicious about your inaccessible sources given that the numerous accessible sources don't support you.
 * The quoted New Yorker article says about Paul Watson: "Some have even called him a terrorist". I believe a similar sentence about characterisations of the sinkings would be appropriate in the article instead of the undue weight of a full paragraph. Hans Adler 13:59, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

As has been noted repeatedly, the real issue here is the semantics of category labels: if you take them as factual or ontological contentions then you need to be incredibly careful about how they are implied. So careful, in fact, that the whole category system would need to be scrapped. (Do we really want editors emptying out Category:Infotainers, for example, because they feel some of those tagged are better described as pure journalists?) If instead you just take them as a navigational structure—a means of finding articles that touch on particular topics—then it seems pretty obvious that this article should be in the category. And this latter interpretation is the way categories work in Wikipedia. The category tag should be restored/retained. Rvcx (talk) 13:55, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a long-standing consensus that some categories do label. In fact, there have been countless edit wars on Wikipedia precisely because of this labelling function of Category:Pseudoscience, and there was an entire Arbcom case about when this labelling category may be applied to an article and when it may not be applied. If you want to change this consensus you have a lot of work before you. Hans Adler 14:02, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * We cannot as editors determine by decree how other people will interpret the significance of a category label. People will, obviously, read the category and decide that Wikipedia has classified the incident as terrorism and the perpetrators as terrorists.  If this were a viable category, the solution would be to work on the name and/or add suitable disclaimers so that a typical reader does not make the connection.  However, if it's true that the category exists only for this one article, then there's no purpose in keeping it at all.  - Wikidemon (talk) 14:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What's the appropriate policy page for this? As I say, my concern is that setting the standard for categories as high as that for asserted facts would mean most category tags should be removed; I had assumed that category tags were appropriate so long as their content rose above WP:fringe. Rvcx (talk) 14:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I would personally choose WP:Village pump (policy) or WT:Categorization. I recommend reading WP:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience before you start a discussion, to get an idea of how contentious categories can be. Also highly recommended is WP:Requests for comment/Wikiproject tags on biographies of living people, which is only about a related problem, but much more recent. I think that should give you an idea of the range of feelings in the community. Hans Adler 15:36, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Note: I protected the article for one week due to edit warring. The BLP issue with the label "terrorism" certainly warrants a complete discussion. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 14:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * A large part of the input here has been from involved editors. The matter temporarily got some attention while it was on ANI, see WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive615. In that thread I could find the following comments on the underlying question from previously uninvolved editors:
 * Floquenbeam: "I'm slightly ambivalent about the underlying issue; I can see both sides."
 * CBM: "Given the recent history and trends with BLP, it is very difficult to understand how established editors could believe it is appropriate to repeatedly insert a category entitled 'terrorism' while the matter is being discussed at the BLP noticeboard."
 * Wikidemon: "Having considered the matter, I do not believe it does harm, nor do I think the policy fairly applies to events or groups."
 * Stephan Schulz: "To quote from WP:CLN: 'Categories appear without annotations, so be careful of neutral point of view (NPOV) when creating or filling categories. Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category.'"


 * CBM has protected the article for a week, but that's not a long time given how long this discussion has been going on already. We should really find a consensus soon. It seems conceivable to me at this point that we already have a consensus because everybody agrees that the two sentences from WP:CLN which Stephan Schulz quoted settle the matter. I note that this text has been in the guideline, essentially unchanged, ever since David Gerard rewrote an earlier formulation on 31 July 2004.
 * If we do not have a consensus about the category yet, I think it is at least clear by now that a consensus is needed to put the article in the category. That makes me hopeful that there will be no more edit warring on the matter. Therefore I propose taking the discussion to WP:NPOV/N, where there will be less focus on whether this is a BLP problem or not, and hopefully we will get additional input from previously uninvolved editors. I am not doing this immediately because (1) it's not necessary if we already have a consensus, and (2) I have previously been accused of forum shopping for my attempts to get a wider section of the community involved. Hans Adler 10:10, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Contrary to my initial thoughts on the matter, WP:CLN does seem pretty clear: if a category tag is controversial (particularly in the case of BLP-relevent controversy) it shouldn't be added. I'd prefer a different interpretation of categories (i.e. that category tags not by taken as asserting facts, but merely indicate that a classification rises above WP:FRINGE), but current policy and semantics are what they are. The terrorism tag should be/remain removed. Rvcx (talk) 10:43, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

A few more eyes needed at News.admin.net-abuse.email
A few attempts have been made to add the name of an unpopular but otherwise non-notable living person to this article. Further note, I've also removed my own name from that article but I'm not the person in question. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:03, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree it is thoroughly inappropriate. I've removed another negative reference sourced to a googlesearch. . The article is problematic as a whole actually. There's a heck of a lot of unsourced information, and a severe lack of secondary sourcing, needed to show that the topic is even notable. --Slp1 (talk) 13:33, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Akahi Nui
Akahi Nui: tone of article is unrelentingly hostile to its subject. In particular, it is utterly inappropriate use the expression "a lifelong criminal" to refer to someone whose convictions all relate to what are essentially acts of civil disobedience (asserting his sovereignty as king of Hawaii). Would we call civil rights protesters "criminals" on a similar basis? But clearly there are other problems with the article as well.

I have no expertise on the topic. A friend interested in Hawaiian sovereignty issues pointed me at the article. - Jmabel | Talk 16:41, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Should this article even exist? A Google Books search only came up with about half a dozen hits, some of which appeared to be on unrelated subjects. A regular Google search showed a lot of hits, but not much in the way of actual reliable sources. For a BLP, we need good sourcing, and if it doesn't exist, neither should the article. *** Crotalus *** 17:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * In any event, it looks like the hostile material is now removed. - Jmabel | Talk 00:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Fred Singer
Fred Singer, 85 years old and Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia, is currently described in the lead sentence of his BLP as a "retired atmospheric physicist". The statement is unsourced, and appears to be factually incorrect. Singer continues to play an active part in the scientific community:
 * Mr Singer is the founder and current president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project.
 * Recent reliable sources, without exception, describe Mr Singer as an "atmospheric physicist", some even as a "leading", "renowned", etc. atmospheric physicist. . New York Times, Dec. 2009. News sources from this year describing him as such.
 * There is not a single google news google scholar or google books source that calls Singer a "retired atmospheric physicist".
 * He published his book "Climate Change Reconsidered" in June last year.
 * He attended The Fourth International Conference on Climate Change this week, holding a session there on Monday.

In my view, this unsourced descriptor as "a retired atmospheric physicist" is a BLP violation, and the word "retired" should be deleted at the earliest convenience (the article is currently locked). Singer may well have retired from his University of Virginia faculty position as Professor of Environmental Sciences at some point in the past, but we have no basis to describe him as a "retired atmospheric physicist" when there is not a single source describing him as such, when he clearly continues to be professionally active in the field, and when his activities as a scientist continue to be the subject of coverage in top-quality sources like the New York Times.

Related discussions:
 * Singer BLP talk page,
 * The editors insisting on describing Singer as a "retired atmospheric physicist" include User:William_M._Connolley, currently the subject of this request for arbitration enforcement under General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation. -- JN 466  19:35, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment: the user filing this request is well aware of this, which states "But one prominent critic of mainstream climate science, S. Fred Singer, a retired physicist, is...", and of this source from the U Virginia which lists him amongst the retired faculty William M. Connolley (talk) 19:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The first one of these sources I was not actually aware of, thank you. The other one I linked myself, above. Your source predates this December 2009 article, also in the New York Times, describing him as "an atmospheric physicist", by more than two years. It is undue weight to argue that we should follow the only press source you have been able to find that describes him as "retired", when there are literally dozens describing him as an active atmospheric physicist over the past two years. -- JN 466  20:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is someone "dismissing the work of physicist Fred Singer as 'fraudulent nonsense" in 2008. I don't mind anyone dismissing his work as nonsense, just don't claim he isn't doing any. ;) -- JN 466  20:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * NYT has been calling Singer a retired physicist since 2001 at least, as well as the above link here is another earlier one: . Personally I have no view on including the word retired but I do have a view that it is not sensible to pretend this is a BLP issue. --BozMo talk 20:33, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Just remove the retired bit then, looking at the citations he is a busy man, the misrepresentation of living people is a clear BLP issue. Off2riorob (talk) 20:38, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Looking at a few of these recent citations and reports he doesn't appear to be retired at all, appears to be quite an active octarian. Off2riorob (talk) 20:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I protected the page because of an edit war on the inclusion of the word retired in a different location. As it happens I protected the version with the word out in that version. First you tried to claim twice that a consensus existed to remove the word retired in a second location to get a change under protection when there was clearly no consensus was process abuse. Coming to this page and now trying to present this edit war as a BLP issue is forum shopping. Since I take BLPs seriously I have had to go and check and took trouble to find both academic papers (on google scholar) and repeated RSs to support "retired physicist" when you claimed there were none. If you think that is going to get more sympathy to your particular point of view you are wrong. I have wasted enough time checking your claim that there is a genuine BLP issue here and there is not. It is a normal content dispute. Settle in on talk in the normal way. --BozMo talk 20:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Calling Singer a "retired atmospheric physicist" appears to be accurate. How germane it is to his notability is another issue - his last academic positions were not in physics at all. Guettarda (talk) 20:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * He is a retired professor; this is uncontroversial
 * His contributions to physics were decades ago; his last position was professor of environmental science
 * "Scientist" is a job, not a lifelong title; when people retire, they are called "retired x", even if they are in related professions (Colin Powell is called a "retired general", even though his opinion remains widely sought by the press on military matters. Ditto Barry McCaffrey and Wesley Clark).
 * If you look at his last 20 years of contributions in ISI-indexed publications (70+, mostly opinion pieces and letters to the editor), the only publications in a physics journals is an opinion piece about climate change
 * While he has published opinion pieces on climate change, UV B and skin cancer, CFCs and ozone depletion, oil production, and the origins of Martian moons, there's nothing that appears to be physics
 * His current activity does not appear to the in a subfield of physics; analysis of the temperature record does not appear to be physics; speculation on the origins of Martian moons does not appear to be physics; arguing that UV B does not cause melanoma does not appear to be physics. The only thing that might arguably fall into "physics" is the role of CFCs in ozone depletion, and publications related to that issue are opinion pieces in the early 90s, at the far end of the 20-year window I looked at.
 * First of all, this isn't a WP:BLP issue. It does not reflect negatively on Singer to say that he is "retired", since that is essentially the meaning of emeritus status. Nor is it unsourced: Singer's own university describes him as "retired" and "emeritus" faculty, so while it is possible to debate whether this is the ideal description, it is not possible to claim that this is a BLP violation. Finally, "atmospheric physicist" and "retired atmospheric physicist" are not mutually exclusive categories (rather, the former is a prerequisite for the latter). Just because a source describes him as an "atmospheric physicist", that source does not contradict the idea that he's currently retired. This dispute is picayune to the point of absurdity, but whatever else it may be, it isn't a BLP violation. MastCell Talk 20:48, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that multiple uninvolved editors are just getting totally fed up to the back teeth of the constant never ending disruption from the climate change articles and the climate change editors, It is time to sort this out and stop the constant disruption. Every BLP the group of editors moves to is disrupted and locked, no living person is safe from their attention, all of which results in protection of the BLP and again and again, it is a clear and repeated BLP problem and it needs sorting out.  Off2riorob (talk) 20:49, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course it reflects negatively on Singer to call him "retired". We are all well aware that WMC, as a scientist, holds the diametrically opposite point of view to Singer. If you call someone an "atmospheric physicist", that sounds like someone you take seriously. If you call him a "retired atmospheric physicist", that implies you can write him off as an old crank. Please. -- JN 466  21:09, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * With respect, you are reading way too much into "retired". It is not an inherently insulting adjective. There's an unhealthy fixation on the personalities involved here, rather than the actual content/policy issue. You can't possibly believe that UVa or the Times are insulting Singer by labeling him "retired". So presumably your objection is that William is applying the descriptor, rather than that the descriptor is inherently offensive. MastCell Talk 22:12, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * When I originally looked into this, I found not a single source calling Singer "a retired atmospheric physicist", the phrase the article's lead sentence has, and hundreds and hundreds of sources calling him "an atmospheric physicist"; among them a few, even of very recent date, calling him a "world renowned atmospheric physicist" or "highly respected atmospheric physicist" (newsmax), or similar terms. There are, I see now, indeed all of 4 sources that have described him as a "retired physicist". Yet he clearly is still very active, and is routinely described as an active scientist, with a voice that commands worldwide attention.
 * I have never edited the climate topic. If anything, my personal views on it are the opposite of Singer's, but I believe dissent should be heard. I saw SlimVirgin's arbitration enforcement request, and looking through WMC's edits to this BLP, readily came across edits that were exactly consistent with what SlimVirgin (who found WMC made it impossible for her to work on the article) was saying. There was addition of original research, insertion of a self-published source, gratuitous insertion of realclimate.org, a site WMC himself contributes to ("A more detailed discussion of the lack of evidence of a link between the sun and the earth's climate can be found at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/index/#Solar RealClimate "), and general evidence of a profound need to control this BLP, not least over the matter of the unsourced "retired" label. Insisting on labelling a man who regularly speaks at international climate conferences, including one this week, and who last year published a widely-reported 880-page book, as "retired", against the weight of sources and outside editor opinion, is simply irrational. This has nothing to do with WMC personally, or his views, only his apparent need to have the Fred Singer BLP say exactly what he wants it to say, and the sources be damned. And you are correct in that I do not now have a very high opinion of WMC's work on this BLP. -- JN 466  23:06, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hopefully we aren't all aware that I'm a scientist, since I'm not. I'm a former scientist. I retain a scientific worldview; I retain an interest in the subject; but I'm not a scientist William M. Connolley (talk) 22:17, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Are you implying the Singer should be referred to as a former atmospheric physicist? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I see no point in describing Singer as "retired". It seems unhelpful.  It's kind of like saying that, "Albert Einstein is a dead physicist who is known for relativity".  Also, JN makes an excellent point in his last two sentences above.  That's my $0.02  Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:01, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that calling someone "retired" is derogatory, akin to calling him a "has been", and should not be done unless there is excellent agreement about it among all reliable sources. I think the title "emeritus" is fine, since it refers to a specific institution, and one can be emeritus from A, while working actively in B. In general in BLP cases, we should aim for the least amount of possible harm, and in this case removing this adjective would accomplish that. Crum375 (talk) 22:13, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * "Emeritus" means "retired". One can be retired from a formal position while still remaining intellectually active. It is literally incomprehensible to me that people perceive the word "retired" as a derogatory epithet, or that a retired professor would be "harmed" by being labeled retired. I can only attribute it to the collective insanity that seems to afflict anything related to our climate-change articles. MastCell Talk 23:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you explain to me where the harm is in describing him as "an atmospheric physicist and Professor Emeritus ...", the way the vast majority of sources do? And if there is no harm, then why am I having to type my fingers off here? -- JN 466  23:38, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There's no harm in that description. It's fine. I think either formulation is acceptable, and I don't really care which one is chosen. I do feel strongly that this is a garden-variety minor content dispute, and not a matter of WP:BLP violations. If I were you, I'd probably just let it go, since there's no way that describing a retired faculty member as "retired" is derogatory. Of course, if I were William, I'd also probably let it go, since there's really no reason to fight to include the word "retired" over other equally reasonable formulations. I think you both need to chill. In general, the entire topic area suffers from an unwillingness to concede, a lack of perspective, and an inability to separate important matters from inconsequential ones. This seems like it would be a good place for someone to set an example, but that's just me. MastCell Talk 00:33, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

If this is retirement, I'd rather work. -- JN 466  22:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Just some of Singer's recent activities:
 * "... distinguished skeptical scientists, economists, and policymakers from around the world – Pat Michaels, Richard Lindzen, Ian Plimer, Bob Carter, Fred Singer.. you name them, they’re here", Daily Telegraph blog, today
 * "I was impressed by the presentation of Dr Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist and founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service, who challenged the IPCC findings with his research data.", China Daily, 28 January 2010, reporting on the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in Dec. 2009
 * In 2007, Professors David Douglass, John Christy, Benjamin Pearson, and Fred Singer wrote a scientific paper in the International Journal of Climatology ..., American Thinker, 18 January 2010
 * "The scientists said they were on Capitol Hill to challenge the president’s claims and show that Mother Nature controls climate around the world and that CO2 in the atmosphere benefits people, plants and animals. “Nature, not human activity rules the planet,” said Fred Singer, an atmospheric and space physicist and research professor at George Mason University and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia." CNS News, October 2009
 * Some recent publications authored or co-authored by Singer found in google scholar:
 * "Climate Change Reconsidered. 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)", Craig Idso, Fred Singer et al. 880 pages, 2009
 * "Petitioning for a revised statement on climate change" SF Singer, H Lewis, W Happer, L Gould, R Cohen, RH … - Nature, 23 July 2009 - nature.com
 * "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate", SF Singer, International Panel on Climate Change 2008 12 citations in google scholar
 * "Climate Distorting US Energy Policies", SF Singer, The American Oil & Gas Reporter, 2008
 * "A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions", arizona.edu DH Douglass, JR Christy, BD Pearson, SF Singer, Int'l Journal of Climatology 2007, 30 citations in google scholar
 * December 14, 2007 “Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural?”, S Fred Singer, Buckeye Institute
 * "Unstoppable global warming: every 1,500 years" SF Singer, DT Avery - 2007 (book) 40 citations in google scholar.
 * The only thing of any scientific standing is the paper with Douglas, Christie, et al in J. Climatology. The rest is self-published and/or opinion. The ref you give for "Nature, Not Human Activity..." is wrong. The IPCC is not involved. Please be more careful about this. GScholar claims 5 references to it, but only shows 4. Being named as a co-author of one (bad) scientific paper is entirely compatible with a a status as retired scientist. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:36, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It looks like we are getting to the main point here: Is he a scientist, or is he a political activist on a science-related topic who used to be a scientist? That's an important distinction which, unfortunately, is apparently not being made by most of the press. This asks for compromise language that neither says directly that he is retired or no longer doing research, but also does not suggest that he is still doing research. It may be necessary to write the lead in more clumsy language than we would otherwise do. Hans Adler 22:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think you need to be doing active research to be a physicist, any more than you have to write books to be a philosopher, or see patients daily to be a physician. The only way one could be described as a "retired" professional, is if he no longer does work related to his profession, and the reliable sources have a clear consensus that he is retired. Otherwise, we give them the benefit of the doubt, which is compatible with the principle of least harm in BLPs. Crum375 (talk) 22:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Stephan, Nature (journal) is "the world's most highly cited interdisciplinary science journal". The piece in question may have been a letter to the editor, but even so, you need to have some standing to get your letter printed in Nature. Hans, I found coverage of Singer in books just the same as in the press: google books. I agree press sources do often have problems, and I wish we relied less on them, but I see no difference on this specific point, and no reason to "correct" sources by substituting editors' original research. -- JN  466  23:24, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And Stephan, here are the 12 (not 4) citations for "Nature, hot human activity rules the climate". -- JN 466  23:33, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, he is a retired (emeritus) professor. However if his training is in physics then he will presumably be a physicist for the rest of his life.   Will Beback    talk    23:19, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Spot on. --FormerIPOnlyEditor (talk) 05:26, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the prevailing opinions of uninvolved editors here (and I myself am not uninvolved) is that it is ok to describe Singer as a retired professor, but not as a retired atmospheric physicist, since that is a title he will carry with him until he passes away. Agreed? Cla68 (talk) 23:37, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That sounds reasonable to me. MastCell Talk 00:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that the use of the word "retired" should only be used in the body of the article (i.e., not in the lead) and then only under a "personal life" kind of section. Unless, of course, it can be shown that "retired" is the typical way a retired scientist Wikipedia articles are described as.  Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 00:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * So, does that mean we're agreed here that we can change the lead sentence from
 * ''Siegfried Fred Singer (born September 27, 1924 in Vienna) is a retired American atmospheric physicist and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia.
 * to
 * ''Siegfried Fred Singer (born September 27, 1924 in Vienna) is an American atmospheric physicist, and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia.
 * per all of these sources? -- JN 466  00:47, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with that. Cla68 (talk) 00:53, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree too. Crum375 (talk) 01:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Me three. :) Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 02:15, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. --FormerIPOnlyEditor (talk) 05:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Also agree. SlimVirgin  talk  contribs 06:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support this alteration. Off2riorob (talk) 11:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support this change mark nutley (talk) 17:35, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm on board with it, too (although I'd replace "professor emeritus" with "retired professor" because I prefer simpler wording, but that's just nitpicky) -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:39, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

How is "atmospheric physicist" a title of any sort? It's a job description. And no, you don't carry your job description for the rest of your life. You carry your PhD (if you were awarded one) for the rest of your life. But you don't carry your job title. You don't carry the title "bus driver" after you stop driving buses, because it's not a title. Nor is "heavy welder". Nor is "physicist". It's a job description. Guettarda (talk) 01:31, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with you. When it comes to biographies, we do label people by their life's work.  Atmospheric phsyicist isn't necessarily a job title, it's what a person is as a cumulative result of their education, experience, research, formal titles, activities, and, most importantly, how they're described in reliable sources, which are our guide. Cla68 (talk) 01:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I also disagree. Professional people carry their training to their deathbed, and may work part time, in various capacities, relying on their professional expertise as long as they live. They don't have to work for a formal employer, nor be producing output at some prolific rate. This applies to physicians, lawyers, artists, philosophers, authors, scientists, and many others. Some of them serve on boards, some provide consulting, sometimes for pay and sometimes pro bono, often till they can no longer function. Some may just publish things on their own website. You can retire from a formal position with a company or institution; you can't retire from your profession. Crum375 (talk) 01:49, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * No, we don't follow sources when they are wrong. Despite the fact that many sources simply call him "General Powell" the Colin Powell article quite correctly refers to him as a retired general. If atmospheric physicist isn't a job title, what is it? "Scientist" is not a title, it's a job description. "Atmospheric physicist" is simply the field of science in which you work. Physicians and lawyers, for example, are certified by professional bodies. You have to meet some set of special requirements for professional certification. You don't need an advanced degree in a field to be a scientist. You need to do science. Guettarda (talk) 02:01, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Professor, on the other hand, is a professional title, much like lawyer. And yet no one has a problem with calling him a retired professor. Guettarda (talk) 02:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * We follow reliable sources, period. That's what Wikipedia is all about. And you may retire from a position with a company or institution, but you don't retire from your training as an intellectual professional. A "scientist" is someone trained in science. He may work for some company or institution, and then leave those positions and go freelance, to serve on boards, to provide consulting, or just publish his latest ideas somewhere. There is no magical point where a professional like that becomes "retired", only dead, when the time comes. Crum375 (talk) 02:15, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * We follow reliable sources, period ... A "scientist" is someone trained in science. - It's pretty amusing you see you say "we follow reliable sources" and then come up with a novel definition of "scientist" which contradicts most sources (and the scientist article). You really need to get the basic facts straight. Guettarda (talk) 02:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is what your wiki link says: "A scientist, in the broadest sense, is any person who engages in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method." Can you show me where it says (or implies) that a scientist has to engage in active research? Or where it says (or implies) that if he doesn't work for a university or other large employer he is "retired"? Or where it says (or implies) that he can't be a consultant? Or manage a think thank? Or serve on a board? Or publish his ideas on his website? Or that a scientist is not someone trained in science (are you saying it's enough to self-declare as such, like a Christian Scientist?) Crum375 (talk) 03:24, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And per the dictdef I also linked below, a scientist is someone with "expert knowledge". You may retire from your job, but not from your knowledge. Crum375 (talk) 03:41, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Absolutely not. I agree with Crum375 - we ONLY follow  reliable sources, especially and specifically when it comes to contentious subjects.  To do otherwise is to engage in  original research.  Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 02:24, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Crum375 isn't following reliable sources. He is asserting that a "scientist" is someone with a degree in science. This assertion is made without sourcing. It's not just unsourced - it contradicts reliable sources. It's a popular misconception about science and scientists. It's also one that has been used by the people who claim evolution isn't happening, cigarettes don't cause cancer and humans aren't causing climate change. Wikipedia isn't about propagating misconceptions, no matter how popular. Guettarda (talk) 02:50, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The concept of "scientist" is a linguistic and philosophical term. What counts is the common usage of the term, just like any English word. And as I noted above, scientist does not say a scientist must be engaged in active research to qualify, nor does it say you can become a scientist by self-declaring as one. Crum375 (talk) 03:31, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And here is a dictdef: "sci·en·tist (sī'ən-tĭst) n. A person having expert knowledge of one or more sciences, especially a natural or physical science." You train to get expertise, maintain it over your lifetime, and you don't "retire" from it. You may retire from your position at the institution or company, but not from your knowledge. Crum375 (talk) 03:37, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

The situation at Fred Singer is worrying; wanting to insist in the first sentence that he is retired is only a tiny part of it. There has been editing there for a long time that seems to have the aim of undermining Singer, rather than just telling his story, good and bad. I've started a new draft of the article at User:SlimVirgin/Fred Singer. Anyone willing to help build that up with good sources is welcome to join me. SlimVirgin talk  contribs 06:36, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Thre is no BLP issue here. How to describe Singer should be done on t:FS; forum-shopping here is unacceptable William M. Connolley (talk) 08:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think trying to disparage a scientist with an opposing point of view by forcing "retired" into his professional description, when he appears to be active, and the sources don't use that qualifier, is akin to calling him a "has been", and is in fact a BLP violation. Crum375 (talk) 13:14, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I would expect that the normal cycle for the biography of a physicist is as follows: I suggest that we concentrate on "or other language that avoids ...", because that's where compromise lies. Hans Adler 13:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) "X is a physicist [...]."
 * 2) "X is a retired physicist [...]." or other language that avoids any explicit claims that X still is a physicist. That's because most of us at some point simply stop doing science itself (because it gets too hard for an aging brain and we stop following the latest developments in detail because playing with our grandchildren is a lot more rewarding), even though we may still use our scientific reputations and take part in science-related debates.
 * 3) "X was a physicist [...]."
 * At least in my own experience, "physicists" are labeled as such even after they stop doing active academic research or teaching. Many such PhD physicists are still young (in their 30s and 40s), and work as managers, consultants, or board directors, long out of their academic research environment, and are always called "physicist" when referring to their professional background. To call someone "retired" you'd need good sourcing, which would normally reflect what they call themselves. It seems that in this particular case the majority of the sources call this apparently very active person "physicist" without "retired", and we should do the same. Crum375 (talk) 13:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Obviously someone who didn't retire cannot be called retired. But someone who is no longer doing science isn't a scientist. And just because people use language imprecisely and incorrectly doesn't mean that we should. "Physicist by training" or "trained as a physicist", yes. "Physicist" (a scientist working in a subfield of physics), no. Not if it's plainly incorrect. Guettarda (talk) 17:09, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * A good exemplar of this notion may be the Congressman Vernon Ehlers, who has a PhD in nuclear physics. Even though he's a politician now, very clearly not an active physicist anymore, he is routinely referred to as a physicist in media coverage about him.  Nowhere in our own article do we refer to him as a "retired physicist," nor does the New York Times in this profile of him and two other physicists elected to Congress . &mdash; e. ripley\talk 14:09, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Our article says he "was the first..." It doesn't call him a physicist (although the language could be a lot tighter). Nor would it be appropriate to call him a retired physicist, since he didn't (AFAICT) make it to retirement (he was about 40 when he entered politics). He remains a physicist by training. But if he's not doing science, there's no way you can call him a scientist. A scientist is a person who does science. Sure, there are lots of other colloquial definitions. Sure journalists use imprecise (and often incorrect) language all the time. But we aren't supposed to make factual statements that are obviously incorrect. Attribute POV, attribute inaccuracies, but don't assert them as if they were true. Not when they are, quite obviously, not true. Guettarda (talk) 17:09, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Look, here's the thing - Wikipedia is a project to write an encyclopaedia, so it's important to get things right. We don't assert that the American Bison is a buffalo because many people call it that (actually the article has nicely nuanced, though sadly unsourced, discussion of the term). It's especially true of BLPs. Our BLP policy is about getting it right, not about writing hagiography. Just because OJ says he's not a murderer doesn't mean that we assert his innocence. Just because lots of people say he is one doesn't mean that we can say that either. "Scientist" is a term that's frequently misused by the public, but that doesn't mean we should embrace that usage. "Evolution" is also misused and misunderstood. But just because most people think that individuals evolve doesn't mean that our article should say so. Same here. Incorrect usage should be documented, but it should not be embraced. Guettarda (talk) 17:22, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * "it's important to get things right": Correct, where "right" means an "accurate representation of what reliable sources have written about those things". And not disparaging a man in his BLP by labeling him a professional "has been", when he is clearly doing work in areas related to his profession, is a basic requirement of WP:BLP. Just because you disagree with someone's political or academic views is no reason to trash their biography. If he is so wrong, prove it by showing that reliable sources contradict his views, not by calling him names or otherwise trying to ridicule him. Crum375 (talk) 18:55, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * But someone who is no longer doing science isn't a scientist. The concept of "doing science" is broad enough to encompass his current opining on controversial subjects involving science, since it's directly based on his career as a scientist. I'm not sure, but he might still be called a scientist if he developed alzheimers and became completely incapacitated. Bureaucrats who come from backgrounds in science and who run scientific organizations are "doing science" and are typically credited with being scientists. How much science is the chief science officer of the British government actually "doing"? Enough, I'm sure. Nobody demands a beaker and a lab coat throughout a scientists' career. The Surgeon General of the United States is still a medical doctor, for instance, even if he or she isn't seeing patients or writing prescriptions. There's also an honorary or honorific element to this, particularly with a public figure. Is this Dr. Smith? Are you a medical doctor? ... I'm a doctor, but I retired from my practice. You don't retire from being a published novelist or poet, either, and will still get called one unless you insist on saying you have stopped writing, and say it loud and long. It's a bit different with various professions and offices. Governors, senators and U.S. presidents and generals keep the honorific in retirement, mostly informally I think. And there are no "former Marines". It's not right to ignore the honorific implications of a desription. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:33, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Seriously? Who came up with the idea that "retired" == "has been"? My uninvolved, purely personal opinion: stating that he is a "physicist and retired professor" should suffice, because that's what he is. He still gives his own opinions and writes papers on physics, but he retired from being a professor. Why is that controversial? &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 15:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Lloyd Banks and John Corso
There appears to be an orchestrated effort to slander John Corso by inserting repeated BLP violations into the Lloyd Banks article. I can't say that I understand the connection, but the Banks article is being repeatedly vandalized. It would be a good idea to keep track of both articles. I'm going to request protection for the Banks article, but I don't understand why the Corso article isn't the subject of the attacks. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 21:07, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Wrong John Corso I think. One of the vandalism edits said it was an Australian male. So at a guess, the now blocked vandal who also appears to be from Australia either knows this John Corso or is this John Corso; and is also a Lloyd Banks fan. So that's your connection. Either way the vandal is now blocked, hopefully won't return Nil Einne (talk) 04:02, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

350.org
List of "messengers" is controversial (IMHO) and sourced only to the organization. Repeatedly re-added by the 99.* anon (who probably are all the same person) and other anons. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:50, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

A poor BLP under another's name
This article, Janice_Nicolich (deceased), appears to be of dubious notability, but worse, it contains significant content on a living person called Verma. This content appears appears sourced, but I don't think it sits well with WP:BLP. Can someone offer an opinion? This came up at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Family History. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:17, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Trimmed all mention of Verma. Off2riorob (talk) 00:17, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Carl Levin
An editor insists on using questionable citations regarding U.S. Senator Carl Levin's lack of military service. I had requested that the editor use only bonafied journalistic citations to support the edit. But he instead started an edit war. Steelbeard1 (talk) 01:31, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * FYI, discussion here also, where I've left an opinion. &mdash; e. ripley\talk 01:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I reverted the bit as POV and said so on the article talk page. I also left a comment to this effect at the editor assistance request linked just above. I hope this helps. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:26, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Muriel Gray
I have tried on several occasions to publish a purely factual piece of information to the biography of the living person Muriel Gray. It has been deleted. All I want to say is the following;-

Muriel Gray's High Court claim against Geoff Widders related to the date of his unpublished novel Flight of the Shaman and the date of her novel The Ancient.

It is an absolutely factually correct statement. Muriel Gray was successful in her claim. And yet people continue to delete it - why do they wish to hide the truth?

This is the link to the article;- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Muriel_Gray&action=edit&undoafter=364477255&undo=364485431

thanks

Geoff Widders —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geoff Widders (talk • contribs) 19:33, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you have a reliable source for that? – ukexpat (talk) 19:47, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Self published non wikipedia reliable blog, the editor Geoff Widders here is of the same name as the person in dispute with the living subject, please do not insert this content again and take some time to read our policies. Off2riorob (talk) 20:04, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

This needs more eyes, lots of 'new' editors appearing at this article. --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Article is protected for a week while we discuss this. Off2riorob (talk) 20:37, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Noah Kirkman
Noah Kirkman concerns over POV in new article, WP:BLP.  Chzz  ►  23:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * AFD...speedy. Off2riorob (talk) 23:49, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't think of a good rational to delete it (I must be tired) its about a ten year old person whose mother sent him to Oregon to stay with his dad with a note and he ended up in care for a couple of years. I have trimmed the POV and the not reliable citations. Off2riorob (talk) 00:33, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I realise that this child was not technically abducted but isn't this on a par with "cross border child abduction by parent" cases? Are they notable? Yes it has had some press coverage but it looks pretty close to a WP:BLP1E IMHO. – ukexpat (talk) 15:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

It is a one event also in my opinion, feel free to AFD Off2riorob (talk) 16:54, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Sent to AFD for discussion here Off2riorob (talk) 20:34, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Chris Kelly (entrepreneur)
Looks pretty bad, seems to be a biography being edited by his enemies. See my edit here. Please put on your watchlists. Becritical (talk) 20:20, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Here's a quote I took out "Kelly was also responsible for exposing minors to sex offenders while at Facebook. During a secret investigation, investigators from the New York Attorney General's office posted fake Facebook profiles for underage teens. Both profiles were soon contacted by older men soliciting sex without being interfered with by Facebook authorities." Becritical (talk) 20:51, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Emmanuel Lewis
Apparently, upon the death of Gary Coleman, people are vandalizing the Emmanuel Lewis article to say that he has died. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 22:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of it is quite juvenile driveby stuff from IP accounts, so I've s-protected the article for a week which should hopefully deal with it. Lankiveil (speak to me) 03:44, 29 May 2010 (UTC).

Does WP:BLP require higher standards for sourcing controversial claims for living figures?
Above, I discuss a specific case involving Arthur Jensen, but I want to abstract from that and ask a more general question. Assume that we have a reliable source (RS) which makes a claim like "Person X wanted to kill all left-handers." (Or insert some other extreme opinion.) If person X is dead, then I have no problem with this sentence going into an article about person X, either exactly as is (with a reference to RS) or, perhaps more neutrally, as "RS claims that person X wanted to kill all left-handers." But, my interpretation of WP:BLP is that, if person X is alive, the situation is very different, especially if a Wikipedia editor believes that, in fact, person X does not want to kill all left-handers. In that case, having a single reliable source is not enough to include the sentence. (Note that other reliable sources may not even address such a claim about person X, especially if it is extreme. So, it may be hard to find a different reliable source to provide balance.) Am I correct that WP:BLP requires higher standards for sourcing controversial claims for living figures than Wikipedia in general requires for sourcing controversial claims about dead people? David.Kane (talk) 22:03, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * BY all means take a look. This user is a pov-pusher active at several related articles.  The key issue is, are their certain views of certain scientists fringe? David Kane's approach has been, to say x holds a fringe view is to attack them.  So he is highly sensitive about some views o psychologist Arthur Jensen.  I think BLP dos over-ride other policies, but not blindly. These issues are well-sourced, we are not reproducin gossip or tablid journlaism about the guy, we are reproducing viws widely circulated in scientific circles with appropaite sources. I wish David Kande hadn't tried to manipulate BLP to win an edit conflict he has been losing.Slrubenstein   |  Talk

The issue appears to be, do not add content that is mis-representative of the subjects position. If it is the view of partisan people and in opinionated journals that thinks he is of that opinion then clearly attribute it and if the content is contentious as this clearly is then cite it to quality locations. There is a bunch of content here but I have seen nothing at all the convinces me that the opener is incorrect in his position the the living subject in this case is being misrepresented through Synth and Opinionated reports. Off2riorob (talk) 00:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

But isn't David.Kane actually himself guilty of a BLP violation here for suggesting that William H. Tucker, a living person and an established academic with an impeccable reputation, is a dishonest and partisan liar? Wouldn't it be libel to suggest that on wikipedia, particularly if we were talking about something that had been in print (University of Illinois Press) and unchallenged for 16 years? This phrase: "rote memorization to improve the scholastic skills of those low IQ black children unable to understand abstract principles." But you know there's not too much doubt left when Jensen writes things like this:

"various lines of evidence, no one of which is definitive alone, but which, viewed all together, make it a not unreasonable hypothesis that genetic factors are strongly implicated in the average Negro-white intelligence difference. The preponderance of the evidence is, in my opinion, less consistent with a strictly environmental hypothesis than with a genetic hypothesis, which, of course, does not exclude the influence of environment or its interaction with genetic factors"

"Is there a danger that current welfare policies, unaided by eugenic foresight, could lead to the genetic enslavement of a substantial segment of our population? The fuller consequences of our failure seriously to study these questions may well be judged by future generations as our society's greatest injustice to Negro America" "It may well be true that many children today are confronted in our schools with an educational philosophy and methodology which were mainly shaped in the past, entirely without any roots in these children's genetic and cultural heritage. The educational system was never allowed to evolve in such way as to maximize the actual potential for learning that is latent in these children's patterns of abilities. If a child cannot show that he "understands" the meaning of $1+1=2$ in some abstract, verbal, cognitive sense, he is, in effect, not allowed to go on to learn $2+2=4$. I am reasonably convinced that all the basic scholastic skills can be learned by children with normal Level I learning ability, provided the instructional techniques do not make g (i.e., Level II) the sine qua non of being able to learn. Educational researchers must discover and devise teaching methods that capitalize on existing abilities for the acquisition of those basic skills which students will need in order to get good jobs when they leave school."

(Here Level I means association and memorization, Level II means abstract conceptual thought.) Mathsci (talk) 00:59, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Can we please keep on topic? I am asking a general question: Does WP:BLP require higher standards for sourcing controversial claims for living figures that would be the case for making similar claims about dead people? I think that the answer is Yes, but would like to hear from uninvolved editors that are more experienced with WP:BLP issues. Once we have answered this general question, we can then dive back into the details of Jensen or other specific case. David.Kane (talk) 03:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Jensen seems to be the only example of interest to you at the moment, hence my comment. WP:Village Pump is the normal place on wikipedia for general discussions of this kind where you don't have a specific BLP in mind. Youur negative comments on William Tucker still worry me. I don't know on what basis you've made them.  Mathsci (talk) 03:18, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * David, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, but it looks like Jimbo Wales has answered your question about this in the earlier thread above. I think that’s probably all the answer we need—for questions about how to interpret Wikipedia policy, he’s the highest authority that exists. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:21, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the pointer. I had missed that. Pretty cool, eh? I will edit WP:BLP to make that clear. MathSci: If you have a problem with Jimbo Wales's decision on this, you may want to proceed to engage in your usual behavior with such editors. I can just imagine the ANI thread . . . ;-) David.Kane (talk) 13:36, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Richard Goldstone and contentious accusations from biased sources
Following on from the discussion above about Arthur Jensen, I would like some input about a very similar issue concerning Richard Goldstone. Summary: Goldstone is a South African former judge and a former UN war crimes prosecutor who is widely credited with playing a leading role in dismantling apartheid. A report of 6 May 2010 by the Israeli tabloid newspaper Yedioth Arinoth accuses him of having "sentenced dozens of blacks mercilessly to their deaths" as an appeal court judge in South Africa. This is demonstrably false: appeal court judges don't pass sentences and executions were suspended permanently the year before Goldstone began serving as an appellate judge; when he was a supreme court judge in the 1980s, he passed two death sentences in murder cases. As can be seen from the way the source attacks Goldstone in personal terms, it is clearly extremely biased and explicitly aims to discredit him for political reasons.

Although a number of reliable sources have commented on it, the Yedioth Arinoth report is still the only source. YA's report is very clearly coloured by opposition to recent political events and is an isolated opinion unsupported at other locations by independent reports. It has been rejected as false by South African legal commentators and it contradicts established history. Is it acceptable under WP:BLP to include an extremely serious (and likely libellous) claim, that is demonstrably false, and which is based solely on one very recent report from a source with a very overt bias? If so, how should it be tackled? In the Jensen case above, Jimbo Wales has endorsed the principle that "Contentious claims require exceptional citations". Does an overtly biased tabloid newspaper, or sources commenting on its allegations, count? An earlier discussion at the reliable sources noticeboard found no consensus on the general reliability of Yedioth Arinoth; I would be grateful for views on the BLP aspects of this issue. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:58, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be helpful here, to also provide links to the other places with related discussions: WP:AE, WT:ARBPIA, ANI, any other noticeboards, etc. --Elonka 16:13, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The main discussion has been on the article talk page - Talk:Richard Goldstone and below. The general reliability of Yedioth Arinoth has been discussed at Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 65. The post above is in response to an editor's suggestion at WP:AE. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:12, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I would like to thank ChrisO for these wise remarks, and this sort of thoughtful approach with due consideration for the full weight of all evidence is exactly right. Recently, in various venues, I have seen a meme creep in that I think is unwise.  In a quite proper desire to avoid WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, some editors have taken a view that I think is too simplistic: the view that we must report more or less willy-nilly on what reliable sources have said, with "reliable source" being a binary on/off judgment made based on a variety of factors.
 * My view is that it is necessary and proper to exercise sensible editorial judgment, and that doing so is not the same as an invalid mode of original research or novel synthesis. The line between the two may be difficult to draw in some cases, but that's our task as good writers and thoughtful encyclopedists.  There are no simple automatic rules and formulas that will cover all cases, although there are general principles of broad applicability.
 * In this particular case, assuming that the facts that ChrisO has set forward are more or less uncontested, it seems clear to me: the anomalous report from a tabloid newspaper must be avoided as a source. (I am, obviously, not making a specific content ruling here - I don't do that.  I'm just offering some thoughts that I hope are generally helpful about what I think our general approach should be, and what it means to be a quality encyclopedic resource.)
 * We live, I'm sorry to say, in an era when the quality of the print media is in horrific decline. (Unless, perhaps, I am just naive, and it has always been this bad.)  As such, we are forced to take a very skeptical stance towards anomalous and politically (or otherwise) motivated reports, even from generally and traditionally high quality sources.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that reply. I'd like to probe this a little further, if I may. Your comments indicate that the original and still sole source of these claims should be avoided. The claims have been discussed by other sources. Can those sources be used to present the same claims - laundering them into reliability, so to speak?
 * That really is the point of this question. As I noted elsewhere, the answer being sought is not whether Yediot is a reliable source for the information, but rather whether Yediot as a sole source is so unreliable that it's not appropriate to include other reliable sources referencing the conflict, or even referencing Goldstone's denial of the claim, in the absence of any new reporting that would substantiate or refute Yediot's original claim. &mdash; e. ripley\talk 19:51, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think, unfortunately, that there is no simple answer here, and each case will depend on the precise circumstances. The general principles would be to ask ourselves whether any particular controversy is really 'encyclopedic' in the sense of 'likely to be of relevance upon taking the long view'.  That a political opponent launched a smear of Abraham Lincoln (say) which proved to be unfounded and was quickly forgotten, may belong in a detailed 700 page history of Lincoln's life and career, but is not likely to belong in an encyclopedia article about Lincoln unless it had some longterm consequences.  Of course, standing today, we are not always going to be right about what the ultimate judgment of history will be - and I don't mean that we should absolutely and always try to do that.  But we can make some judgments that some random noise is not likely to be more than that in the long run.  As always, of course, the devil is in the details.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:39, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have a parallel case in mind - I note that although there's been a very extensive controversy over Barack Obama's place of birth it's not mentioned at all in his article. Similarly there have been claims about the parentage of Sarah Palin's son Trig, which are not mentioned in that article. The circumstances there seem to be very similar: anomalous claims from political opponents, which make demonstrably false allegations. In both cases we seem to have taken a conscious approach to exclude such claims, even though they have been discussed in reliable sources. Would you advocate this as a general approach? -- ChrisO (talk) 17:33, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I would, though of course it's important not to turn this general principle into a bat with which to exclude genuine controversy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:39, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I think with the Goldstone case mentioned above this is the wrong approach, and though meant with the best intentions could have the opposite results to those intended. If no mention is made of the false accusations, they don't go away, but are still available. A reader could find them elsewhere in the original report with nothing to contradict them. If the reader comes to the wikipedia article, they will find no mention of the allegations, to they remain unrefuted. The wiki article also then appears to have a glaring omission, which also casts doubt on its reliability. Far better is to represent all the facts, namely the allegation and the related data about appeal court judges and suspension of executions etc. The falsehood of the allegations is then apparent. There may be an argument that this violates WP:SYNTH. I have argued that this is not the case. No conclusion is explicitly made, though it may be glaringly obvious to the reader, but that is up to them. False allegations are made continually and can develop a life of their own. Wikipedia can be a place where they are put into a proper context, which, if done correctly, will expose them for what they are.  Ty  18:47, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that this, too, is a respectable position. And I suspect that all three of us in this discussion so far would agree, in general, with both views having some merit and that the precise decision in a particular situation will be a judgment call.  Every random crazy allegation doesn't need to be reported upon, but some crazy allegations, if they have sufficient "traction" such that thoughtful people may be often confronted with them, need to be handled so that readers can understand the full scope of the situation.
 * How to handle this in particular cases depends on the precise circumstances. In the case of Barack Obama's birth certificate, the crazy allegations have been sufficiently noisy that it is a good thing for the world, I think, that when you google for a variety of different terms (I just tried and was pleased with the result) looking for information about it, you get Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories quite high in the results.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:39, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, that particular example leads to the suggestion not that we include this smear campaign against Goldstein in his BLP but that we create another article: Richard Goldstone whackadoodle Gaza Report frenzy... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand what you're getting at, but that doesn't seem to be the approach we've taken elsewhere. I would think that BLP should mean a consistent approach. I don't think we should try to refute allegations (even implicitly) - we're not supposed to be advocates, after all. An additional problem is the question of undue weight. Goldstone is a very high-profile individual whose work has been documented in thousands of articles, books, journals and newspaper reports. Jimbo refers above to giving "due consideration for the full weight of all evidence." Giving emphasis to a very recent controversy based on one article in one newspaper with an obvious bias would seem like a textbook example of undue weight as well as undeserved recentism. We're not a newspaper; we don't have to document every passing claim that is made. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Elsewhere is not conclusive. We can always rethink. UNDUE is a different consideration. That may apply in this case: I wouldn't know. There was indication that the matter had received wider attention: "a number of reliable sources have commented on it ... It has been rejected as false by South African legal commentators." If UNDUE does apply, then this is not a good case to examine the general principle, which is really my concern. The discussion was not based on UNDUE, but on the fact that we, as editors, could show the allegation was false. We have refuted the allegation (implicitly) by excluding it altogether, based on what is actually OR. Presenting in a neutral way relevant facts that the inquiring reader would want to know about, and would otherwise have to research for themselves, is not advocacy.  Ty  20:24, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think we are all in agreement about the principles here, though we might in particular cases have a slightly different view of the application. There is no solution but reflection, reason, and thoughtful collaboration.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:39, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem is that things are never as black and white as ChrisO presented them. Some of the things mentioned in the YA report appear in other reliable sources that don't mention YA at all. I'd argue that ChrisO's interpretation of the semantics of "sentenced" is incorrect. It's also easy to argue that those who refute the YA report are doing so due to political reasons rather than the other way around, etc, etc, ad infintum.
 * It really boils down to how many sources and of what quality do you need to present exceptional claims, and what is an exceptional claim, anyway? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:47, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The last question is easy to answer, thanks to WP:REDFLAG: "claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living persons." The claim being presented in the YA report is that Goldstone was an agent of apartheid, a "merciless" "hanging judge" who sent "dozens of blacks to their deaths". The historical record is that Goldstone was a liberal judge with a lifelong opposition to apartheid who passed two death sentences in circumstances where the law gave him no other choice and was actually criticised by another judge for being soft on the death penalty. Having researched this extensively over the last two weeks, I can state with confidence that nobody has ever previously presented Goldstone in the way that the YA report does. That in itself should be cause for concern - YA is making claims about Goldstone's public judicial record that have somehow escaped the attention of the South African government, his fellow judges in South Africa, all his biographers, newspaper reporters, the United Nations and the entire world's legal profession. Occam's Razor should be a clear guide here. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Since nobody is arguing to insert "merciless", "hanging judge" or that he sent "dozens of blacks to their death" into the article, we can put that strawman aside. What is the specific exceptional claim that editors want to put in the article? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:56, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The claims can be seen here in a text that several editors have attempted to edit-war into the article against consensus. In addition, this text includes quotes from two commentators that seem to have been chosen for their maximum smear value - one that compares Goldstone with the Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele and another that accuses Goldstone of "moral turpitude". I cannot see any legitimate reason for including such material from commentators who represent an extreme POV on the issue. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:07, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The text removed reeks of POV in its length and emphasis. However, the issue has received wider coverage, e.g. in the The Jerusalem Post. This was in the context of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission. I suggest a short paragraph in that section stating the accusations and who made them, along with his response, would be appropriate.  Ty  22:47, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have been wary of that for two reasons. First, the undue weight and recentism problems mentioned above. Second, while there is value in your suggestion of including coverage of the controversy in order to inform readers, the dilemma in this case is that Goldstone's biography on Wikipedia is not that heavily viewed and coverage of the controversy has been largely limited to the Israeli and Jewish-American press. Readers of the international mainstream press are unlikely to have heard about it. Covering the controversy in the article might help those readers who have heard about it to understand it in the short term. However, as the controversy fades from the headlines it will be forgotten in the public mind. In the longer term people would be most likely be to learn about it from the Wikipedia article. We would do a net harm by including and perpetuating the controversy, exaggerating its significance and giving the false impression that it's a live issue. My approach in this has been to always put the long term first, bearing in mind Wikipedia's role as an encyclopedia rather than a purveyor of the latest news. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:12, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have already agreed with you that those 4 paragraphs are too much. I suspect that due to the complete reluctance to insert any of this information into the article, whoever wrote that assumed there would be some haggling to reach consensus. Call me an optimist. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:07, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You're an optimist. The people who repeatedly inserted those 4 paragraphs have consistently argued - where they've bothered to engage on the talk page, which some haven't - for the inclusion of the whole thing and have screamed blue murder any time anyone has touched the 4 paras. Nobody has proposed any alternative form of words. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:12, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Shoaib Akhtar

 * - see the very last sentence of the article. It says that he has genital warts. That sounds like a BLP violation.  However, there is a reliable source.  Officially, WP is not censored but it is very undignified to say someone has herpes. // Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 19:34, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Genital warts are not always the same as Herpes genitalis. Wikipedia is not about ascribing dignity to anyone but of dealing with verifiability. It's not a personal attack, but a statement of verifiable fact. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:44, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Arthur Jensen: Do serious accusations from potentially biases sources require a higher standard of proof?
I would like some comments from more experienced editors about the interaction between WP:BLP and (potentially) false claims made in reliable sources. Full discussion is here. Summary: Don Campbell is a famous psychologist who does not like Arthur Jensen. He claims that Jensen "has recommended separate curricula for Blacks and Whites." This is, obviously, an extremely serious accusation. I also believe that the accusation is false. Neither Campbell (nor any Wikipedia editor involved in the dispute) has been able to provide a citation to any of Jensen's (voluminous) writings where Jensen actually says this. In fact, Jensen believes that separate curricula for low IQ and high IQ students may be a good idea. Needless to say (and even though Jensen believes that average IQs differ among blacks and whites), this is a very different claim. Question: Does WP:BLP require that extremely serious (and, possibly, libelous) claims made about a living person X meet a higher standard of proof than simply that person Y (with a documented bias against person X) makes the claim? Thanks for any opinions you have to offer. David.Kane (talk) 13:19, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

A claim like that attributed to his opponent that has not been cited to any other location and is appearing to be an isolated opinion unsupported at any other reliable locations in independent reports, yes I would say without looking under those conditions it would be a WP:BLP violation, as in, contentious claims require exceptional citations. Off2riorob (talk) 15:00, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry to come in late here, but I want to agree with Off2riorob on the philosophical point here. "Contentionus claims require exceptional citations" is a concise statement, beautifully put.  Now, as to this particular issue, and whether that burden of proof has been met, I don't think so, but I am not certain.  I read enough of the discussion which follows to think that is almost certainly has not been met, but I applaud that people do seem to agree that in order to claim that Jenson "has recommended separate curricula for Blacks and Whites" we need it from his own words, not the synthesis and conclusion-drawing of his critics.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:32, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Jimmy, multiple academic sources has interpreted Jensen's article as an argument in favour of differentiating education based on race. It is correct that this conclusion is not given in exactly those words - but the first half of the paper he argues that blacks have lower IQs than whites and in the second he argues that education should be suited to the ididvidual. True it is synthesis to draw the conclusion that Jensen favoured segregation in the classroom but nonetheless many scholars have made that synthesis when describing Jensens viewsin reliable peerreviewed sources. Now my problem is that if we cannot report on how his views have been interpreted in a certain way without committing a blp violation - then there are simply too many articles that can't give basic information - It seems that you suggest that whenever there is a conflict between what a living individual says and what others say about him we cannot include what others have said even with the most reliable of sources. That would lay waste to any kind of objectivity in wikipedia and convert articles into personal soapboxes for all kinds of controversial people - who wouldn't be contradicted because of supposed blp issues. Rather: The way I understand NPOV it requires that we include all significant views that can be sourced to reliable sources - in this case interpreting Jensens statements as advocating racial segregation in education is a common view sourceable to multiple reliable sources - there is no way not to include it. The question is of course that it should be attributed not as Jensens viewpoint but as X's interpretation of Jensens viewpoint. ·Maunus· ƛ · 06:18, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Alexander Alland Jr. "Race in Mind""His highly controversial article “How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?,” published in the Harvard Educational Review in 1969, made a case for the preponderance of heredity in the production of intelligence as measured by IQ tests, and an average genetic deficit in IQ among people of black ancestry when compared to whites. Although the argument had been made before, Jensen’s article drew a vast amount of positive attention from the press and among some educators and strongcriticisms from many, but by no means all, professional psychologists and anthropologists. It is important to note that the “Jensen Report” came shortly after the Supreme Court decision banning segregation in public schools and the successes of the civil rights movement to desegregate schools in the South. Therefore, it should come at no surprise that Jensen’s conclusions were seized upon immediately by those who opposed remedial educational programs, such as Project Head Start, for young poor children and, in particular, poor black children. In a nutshell their argument was: If, as Jensen has proved, IQ is largely hereditary, it is a waste of money and time to develop and pursue programs for children in order to enhance their intelligence. Because even today this article stands as a model for those who continue to believe the IQ argument concerning race, this chapter will focus on its major shortcomings. ... Then, in 1969 a media bombshell struck. It was an article by Arthur Jensen, “How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?,” published in what the press referred to as the “prestigious” Harvard Educational Review. By this time a new administration had taken over the White House. The country was in the midst of the Vietnam War, begun under Johnson, and priorities had shifted from domestic programs to foreign relations. Jensen’s article, soon to be known as the “Jensen Report,” argued that Head Start and programs like it were bound to fail. IQ was, he claimed, primarily hereditary, and African Americans were genetically inferior in IQ to whites. ... The main thrust of Jensen’s paper, which has been somewhat buried by popular accounts, is that there is a wide diversity of mental abilities in humans and that educational programs should be tailored to meet the needs of all children. It is difficult to disagree. It is most unfortunate, however, that Jensen pleads this case in the context of a report centered on a flawed discussion of genetics and IQ. In his report Jensen took a fairly safe, if as yet unproved hypotheses—that intelligence is heritable (that it varies among individuals by genetics and environment)—and forced it to carry the burden of a second argument for which there is no acceptable evidence at all."·Maunus· ƛ · 06:28, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * He did not in fact suggest separate curricula: he suggested different ways of teaching (see the exact quotes from Jensen in the second section below started by David.Kane). He distinguished two levels of learning: level I, learning by association and memorization (or rote); level II, learning by abstract concepts and problem solving. Proficiency in Level II learning was exactly what was measured by general intelligence (i.e. IQ tests). He suggested that the black-white IQ gap of 15 points had a genetic component. He then suggested that, for cultural and genetic reasons, that some children had no aptitude to learn by level II methods and so it might be more reasonable and fairer to teach them using only level I methods. Commentators, not necessarily critics, summarised this as the suggestion that it might be better and fairer if black children of lower average IQ were taught by rote. Mathsci (talk) 02:14, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is the same kind of description by Joan Freeman, a psychologist specializing in gifted education from her book "Gifted Children: Their Identification and Development in a Social Context" (1980) Springer (page 101) :

"Jensen matched black and white chidren for socio-economic level and measured their IQs. He found that the black children's IQs covered the whole range, but that their average IQ was about 15 points lower than that of the matched white children. He interpreted this as meaning that black intelligence was different from white intelligence and so could not be measured on the same tests. He proposed that different forms of education, more appropriate to their kind of intelligence, should be given to black children. There would be less conceptual flights of fancy and more rote learning for them."


 * This shows that there was no BLP violation and puts paid to the idea that Tucker or Campbell might have been misreoresenting Jensen. I'm sure there are lots of other books containing similar kinds of statements. Mathsci (talk) 05:43, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * One more from page 52 of "Intelligence, an introduction" (1979) by David Pyle :

"Jensen argued on the strength of these conclusions 'compensatory education has been tried and has apparently failed' and mostly because the young negro supposedly has a lower genetic potential to benefit from any compensatory help given. In Chapter 1, Jensen's ideas on the nature of intelligence were discussed - Level I being held to be 'associative' ability common to all social classes, and Level II being 'cognitive' ability which is based on Level I, buto not equally available to all. He sees the main implications of this line of reasoning to be that children of allegedly low genetic potential should have an educational curriculum based on Level I material (mechanical memory and rote learning) and those better endowed should have a more conceptually demanding education, in line with Level II."


 * I might try to find one more just for fun. Mathsci (talk) 06:14, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It is reported by Jensen himself (see below). Jensen's theory of Level I and Level II learning is reported in multiple sources (eg textbooks on intelligencewell as well as jensen's own writing). Nor is it correct to characterise an eminent scientist as his opponent. Jensen might pereive him as such but he is an expert commentator and apparently it's only these statement which David.Kane is objecting to. However he has let it appear in another article without a problem. Please could Off2riorob give a more carefully response when he has read the facts. Well really can't do very much if academics like Jensen think they have enemies. In this case, indeed, he and his coworker has described the academic mainstream etsablishment as being in the grips of a Marixt neo-Lysenkoist conspiracy.


 * A while back David.Kane tried to WP:CPUSH the same unfounded point at History of the race and intelligence controversy. It refers to the a suggested recommendation by Arthur Jensen in 1969 and later that two types of learning were appropriate for blacks and whites in the US; Level I learning (by rote) and Level II learning (abstact reasoning with concpets). On the first occasion he accepted eventually that the statements in the secondary source by William H. Tucker were in his 2002 book Scientific Racism (University of Illinois Press) were accurate and not a BLP violation (the first boxed quote below). Now he is having the identical argument abouttthe same material referred to in a quote from a paper of Donald T. Campbell, a very distinguished psychologist. Campbell's statement again  refers to level I and level II learning. Now another editor with the same point of view had made exactly the same atgument and conceded he was wrong. He had not editied the other history article, but had been summoned to this article by another editor who often edits in tandem with David.Kane. He changed his mind when he read that Jensen had confirmed Campbell's statement some year's later about rote learning.. Jensen because of an article he wrote in 1969 containing these statements became of the most controversial figures in the US: this is a well documented episode in the history of psychology. His 1969 paper is usually referred to in textbooks on psychology as controversial or notorious. Here David.Kane is objecting to the use of an article by the eminent psychologist who was president of the American Psychological Association at the time of the huge uproar in the 1970s, when individuals were firing claim and counterclaim against each other. here however he was writing just before the edn of his life - the publication is posthumous. The publication is here:
 * and the commentary was also described here:
 * and the commentary was also described here:


 * The identical statement appears with verifiable resliable secondary sources in History of the race and intelligence controversy. The relevant passage which David.Kane accepted there was:
 * The identical statement appears with verifiable resliable secondary sources in History of the race and intelligence controversy. The relevant passage which David.Kane accepted there was:


 * The passage he is now objecting to is:


 * The objections seem spurious and, since there is no doubt that Jensen did make these recommendations in published papers (and later a book), I cannot see what possible grounds there is for a BLP violation, I have no reason to believe that Donald T. Campbell bore any grudge against Jensen and I believe that, as a very highly regarded academicm he was writing dispassionately. Jensen and his closer associates, in particular Linda Gottfredson, on the other hand have made outpsoken remarks about presidents of the American Psychological Association, including both Donald T. Campbell and Robert Sternberg, both of whom are or were extremely eminent in their field. So I would assume that interchanges like this are fairly common amongst some psychiatrists. Certainly in the uproar of the 1970s, Jensen came into conflict with many academics, some of whom were very eminent. I don't think either Sternberg or Campbell have been unduly outspoken in print. Mathsci (talk) 15:21, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Bit confusing, the issue was simple.. the claim by this person that the subject "has recommended separate curricula for Blacks and Whites." could you show me where this is independently verifyable. Off2riorob (talk) 15:25, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hello. The google book link I gave above [http://books.google.com/books?id=LQEOPOZiaAYC&pg=PA356&lpg=PA356&dq=rote+learning+jensen&source=bl&ots=e8BhlWIko3&sig=_N1FwuyexISBgmWQp

Honestly I think the issue is mainly one of notability to Mainstream Science on Intelligence. I have access to Campbell's publication in full, and this ad hominem attack on Jensen is one unreferenced sentence in a six-page double-column paper which addresses all the other points directly and with extensive citations to published research. Picking out that one attack as a major point is agenda-pushing. Seems like an obvious no for this article unless there are plenty of other reliable sources that pick out one (possible) view of one of the 52 signatories far more prominently. Rvcx (talk) 15:42, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Please explain why this is an "ad hominem attack" on Jensen. In the longer article by Luis Laosa, referring to a letter by Campbell in the WSJ, there is a reference to a 1972 book of Jensen, Genetics and education. Besides - if you hadn't realised it - Donald T. Campbell died between submitting the paper and its publication. The ideas of Level I and Level II learning are hardly a secret and well known to psychiatrtists. For example page 178-179 of
 * discusses this theory of Jensen explicitly. This is an undergraduate textbook - so it has become common knowledge in the subject. But just look at what Jensen himself says before claiming BLP violations. How would we report Jensen's papers, vene secondary sources, on wikipedia in these circumstances. Anyway the article Mainstream Science on Intelligence is just a one page statement in the WSJ. which probably was quite controversial. Nicholas Mackintosh comments exactly on black-white differences on page 179 of his undergraduate textbook. There's no indication whatsoever that Donald T. Campbell was malicious. Accroding to the obituary at Lehigh University he was, "Above all, Don was a marvelous human being, and a great friend. We shall all miss him deeply." We wikipedians at all that Campbell was  writing in a hostile way. he was giving his opinion as  one of the great academic psychologists of the 20th century. But again this is not an "ad hominem attack". In their WSJ article - a sort of OpEd that would not nomrally warrant a wikipedia article - the writeres claimed that their statements had no impact on social policy in the US. Campbell was merely giving an example of a piece of research of that nature which did involve recommendations for social policy. That's hardly an "ad hominem attack". It is a comment on point 25, the last of their 25 point. You can see a low resolution version of the page from the WSJ in the article. Mathsci (talk) 15:59, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * An ad hominem attack doesn't need to be malicious; it just means it addresses the person instead of the argument. This one sentence just doesn't rise to the level of notability in that context.
 * More importantly, you are trying to conflate Jensen's ideas of different learning styles for different IQs with support for different learning styles for different races. It's the racial angle that I'm having trouble verifying. Rvcx (talk) 16:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * More importantly, you are trying to conflate Jensen's ideas of different learning styles for different IQs with support for different learning styles for different races. It's the racial angle that I'm having trouble verifying. Rvcx (talk) 16:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Digging into this more, I'm having a very hard time verifying the text "He also concluded that some kind of eugenic intervention was needed to reduce the birthrate of those with low IQs, particularly in the black population," pointed out in the History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy article. I haven't yet read all of Jensen's 80-page piece that is used as a source, but I haven't yet seen anything suggestion that eugenic intervention is "needed"; only his hypothesis that such intervention would have a greater effect on IQ than remedial education (which is a very different contention). What's more, you need a really strong source for the "particularly in the black population" part, and I just don't see it. In fact, despite his claims that there are statistical differences in IQs between races, Jensen appears to argue against using race as a proxy for anything:


 * We need to be very careful about recasting libelous mischaracterization of his work as fact. Rvcx (talk) 16:07, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks to Rvcx for pointing out the issue at History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy. Following WP:BLP, I have deleted it as well. David.Kane (talk) 16:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * (refactored) Did you look in the secondary source (Tucker 2002)? The page numbers there are 95 and 115 in the original 123 page document. These are the page numbers given by Tucker. The quote from the paper on eugenics, given in Wooldridge (1995), is:

"Is there a danger that current welfare policies, unaided by eugenic foresight, could lead to the genetic enslavement of a substantial segment of our population?"

This requires looking at 2 or more secondary sources and the primary source, which I don't believe is available in paginated form on the web. Finding things like this takes time. In this case this quote is cited in a 1995 Cambridge University Press book by Adrian Wooldridge. No need for wikipedians to start bandying round mention of libel in this silly way. Mathsci (talk) 16:18, 28 May 2010 (U
 * We are all amateurs here, the whole wikipedia is written for ordinary people. These claims are doing nothing for me, can you just keep it simple and show us a strong quality citation for this contentious claim about a living person? Off2riorob (talk) 16:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Where is the libel and where is the problem with level I and level II learning? Both of you are making remarks off the tops of your head without any lengthy attempt to look at the sources or the article[s] - you haven't had enough time to do that. At the moment Rcvx is suggesting that a book published by Cambridge University Press and University of Illinois Press contain libellous content, by quoting Jensen's 1969 or 1968 papers. that is an absurd statement to make. No reputable academic publisher would do that. Jensen's article does indeed contain that quote and secondary sources comment on it. Likewise it contains a discussion of rote learning. Campbell's claim is not contentious at all: other commentators made similar remarks about point 25 and social policy.  Jensen did recommend this in his article. It's also explained in Tucker's book; and if you look at the the statements by Jensen I just gave you (on google books), Jensen himself says it. May I suggest that, instead of rapid fire postings her, you take a little time yourself to look at the google books reference, Mackintosh, Wooldridge, Tiucker and the primary source. Otherwise you're not really in a position to comment, are you? Mathsci (talk) 16:43, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * That quote absolutely does not express a "need" for eugenics, merely the entirely mainstream notion that the better we are at accommodating genetic differences the greater those differences will become. Asking whether antibiotics might result in a human subpopulation with terrible immune systems (because several generations in increasingly-worse natural condition can survive) is not the same as declaring a need to ban antibiotics.
 * It's also worth reviewing WP:SYNTH. Putting together bits and pieces from different sources to form conclusions is a job for historians and biographers, not Wikipedians. Rvcx (talk) 16:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed, contentious claims require quality citations. We have a duty of care to represent our subjects in a balanced way, asserting a plus b makes him a fan of c is not what we are here to do at all. Off2riorob (talk) 16:36, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This is absurd. You haven't read the article. You're two amateurs trying to make your own commentar y and judgement on a 123 page paper in educational  psychology and psychometrics from 1969. A  primary source, What you're doing at the moment is just WP:OR. You two know very well that's why we use secondary sources. I have no idea what makes you think that your own amateur commentaries on papers in psychology, where you have no expertise, has any value at all. How are you in a position to judge. In 30 minutes neither has the expertise to make these judgements.  But you're also commenting apparently on all the scecondary mentioned above which you abviously haven't had time to look. This is very unscholarly and certainly you seem to be playing wikipedia like some kind of teenage video game. Neither of you is in a position to evaluate primary sources like the 1969 article of Jensen.


 * Again where is the contentious statement, where is the evidence that an academic article of Donald T. Campbell was malicious and why is it that you are claiming that mention of eugenics and contolling birth control is libellous? At the moment there has just been a lot of hot air. Certainly none of the content of the two books published by Cambridge University Press and University of Illinois Press is libellous. Summarising that content on wikipedia similarly is not libellous. Please can both of you try to get some grip on reality (unless of course you want ArbCom to be involved)? Mathsci (talk) 16:51, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, it looks like a blp issue to me, here it is...He claims that Jensen "has recommended separate curricula for Blacks and Whites." please provide a reliable quality citation that supports this claim. Where does the subject claim it himself in his work, please link me to the content from the subject ? 17:39, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

As requested. The first two are the main secondary sources from books in the history of psychology. The third of Level I (rote learning) a Level II learning (abstract conceptual reasoning). There are many other sources but these are the two that cover the history from 1960-1990. Mathsci (talk) 18:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * (book won three prizes)
 * (primary, pages 85 and 115, pagination of article in original journal as referenced in Tucker)
 * (primary)
 * (Jensen's own commentary in 1987)
 * (primary)
 * (Jensen's own commentary in 1987)

This thread is almost in need of archiving. Please just link me to a simple quality citation that supports that the subject of this BLP said that he "recommends separate curricula for Blacks and Whites". Please quote me the exact comments and the exact location of the comments. Off2riorob (talk) 18:13, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) It is on page 148 of Tucker (2002). There Tucker writes, "The conclusions of Jensen's article were thus both educational and social: rote memorization to improve the skills of low IQ black children unable to appreciate abstract principles and some sort of eugenic intervention designed to reduce their numbers". It can be viewed on amazon.com (if you've purchased there recently). Mathsci (talk) 18:31, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This is becoming circular. I think if anything is going to beresolved, we need to change the format of this discussion. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about "separate curricula" but the Tucker book from the University of Illinois clearly indicates he recommended different teaching methods. "Jensen argued that minority schoolchildren were hampered neither by discrimination nor deprivation; their poor educational performance was a consequence of teaching methods that had been appropriate for white middle-class students but not for minorities, who did not respond to conceptual explanations because of the genetic limitations in their intelligence but who could nevertheless be taught be relying on their ability for association rather than understanding. Obviously reflecting the influence of his discussions with Shockley, Jensen also expressed concern that "misguided and ineffective attempts to improve [the] lot" of blacks through social programs would only lead- in the physicist's favorite phrase- to their "genetic enslavement" unless accompanied by "eugenic foresight". The conclusions of Jensen's article thus were both educational and social: rote memorization to improve the skills of low-IQ black children unable to appreciate abstract principles and some sort of eugenic intervention designed to reduce their numbers." --Slp1 (talk) 18:36, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * We seem to have lost sight of what we're trying to verify. So far I've highlighted two issues:


 * Campell's claim, quoted in the Mainstream Science on Intelligence article, that Jensen "has recommended separate curricula for Blacks and Whites". No doubt that Campbell claimed this, but I just don't see how it's notable in Mainstream Science on Intelligence. Campbell said a lot of things much more relevant and important in his response; cherry picking this one quote seems like going out of your way to attack Jensen. To achieve notability, we'd need Jensen's (claimed) view to be highlighted as a major factor (not a single sentence buried at the end) by other reliable sources reporting on the "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" article as well.
 * The statement "He also concluded that some kind of eugenic intervention was needed to reduce the birthrate of those with low IQs, particularly in the black population," in the History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy article. Jensen definitely mentioned eugenics, but I haven't found anything saying that he thought it was needed, and I certainly haven't seen anything saying that eugenics should be applied particularly to blacks. Note that we're not allowed to put the the pieces "I support eugenics for people with low IQs" and "black people have lower IQs" together ourselves, even if the logic were sound (which it's not—statistical comparisons are not categorical comparisons).
 * Also, the 1969 paper you link to is a PDF. Just say which page in that PDF the quote is on. Rvcx (talk) 18:28, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's on page 95 of the original article. I have no idea of the correlation with the web copy. The original 123 page article can be found in a university library for example, but is not available on the web. Mathsci (talk) 18:37, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well you're linking to a PDF on the web. If you have a different version in front of you just match the two up and point at a page number. It's not that complicated. Rvcx (talk) 18:40, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That's pretty weak tea; you need to stretch the quote in all kinds of directions to turn it into a "need" for eugenics, "particularly in the black population". Among other things, as noted above a conclusion that eugenics would increase IQ is not an endorsement of eugenics and more than a conclusion that the extinction of humanity would stop global warming is an endorsement of genocide. Any other sources provide anything clearer? Rvcx (talk) 18:39, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * See above for information from the Tucker book that provides some of the sourcing you are looking for. --Slp1 (talk) 18:42, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Personally it looks to me as an outsider from what has been presented here that the subject is not actually citable as this position and someone has claimed he believes this, and as it is a big issue, I support the opener of this thread, Please why not just represent the subject as closely as possible to the quality independant reports , that is our work. Off2riorob (talk) 18:48, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed regarding the "eugenics" thing: just attribute it ("Tucker interprets Jensen's position as..."). Even if the paraphrase of Tucker's interpretation is less than perfect, at least then it's not a BLP violation against Jensen. I still don't see any reason for include that particular paragraph from Campbell, however. Rvcx (talk) 18:54, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

<= (ec) You can also look in this book by Tucker which has a much longer discussion of this point in Jensen: You can also look at the 1987 link above (the article written by Jensen). It's also referred to by Nicholas Mackintosh, FRS, in the 1998 book cited above: "Jensen (e.g. Educability and group differences, 1973) proposed a distinction between Level I and Level II: abilities blacks and whites he suggested, differed only in Level II abilities, which are those measured by IQ tests. They do not necessarily differ in Level I abilities, which involve simple encoding, storage, and retrieval of sensory input. According to Jensen:

"Level I ability involves the accurate registration abd recall of information without the need for elaboration, or other mental manipulation. It is most easily measures by forward digit span memory and serial rote learning of verbal material with minimal meaningful meaningful organization ... Level II ability involves ... reasoning, problem-solving, semantic generalization, conceptual categorization and the like. Level II is virtually the same as Spearman's construct of g." [Page 337, Mogdil & Mogdil above]"

Mathsci (talk) 19:02, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is an interview Jensen gave to LIFE magazinve, published June 12, 1970. The statements are fairly unambiguous there. Mathsci (talk) 19:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Mathsci, please clarify what piece of text you're trying to support. My point is that the Campbell quote simply isn't notable as commentary on the WSJ article. The above doesn't support the (unattributed) assertion about eugenics, either. Rvcx (talk) 19:07, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Donald T. Campbell is not just any academic psychologist. He had been president of the American Psychological Association, a great sign of recognition. He has also won prestigious prizes for his research. He was one the best placed scientitsts to comment. There is no basis whatsoever to disregard his comments. He was one of the most eminent academic psychologists in the US. The meaning of the above passage is that whereas both blacks and whites have the same capacity for Level I learning (by rote), whites are genetically better adapted  in Level II learning (abstract thought

and conceptual problem solving). Mathsci (talk) 19:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This isn't WP:SYN-and I don't understand why it's disputed. Tucker was used to source the claim.  The claim here was carefully worded here to alleviate any potentially misleading inference in Tucker's more simply stated quote (Tucker didn't misrepresent, but the concern was that we don't mislead given that it is being used here removed from the larger narrative Tucker surrounded it with). There was a somewhat lengthy discussion surrounding this issue on the talk page.  That' it's being revisited now here, removed completely from the discussion that went into the edit on the talk page, is difficult to justify--because I don't know who, except a handful of wikipedians, dispute the summary.  It's more like some wikipedians are backing away from statements not because they're insufficiently sourced but because they might "sound bad".  Jensen not only emphasized the situation and implications for the black population in this paper (he was pitched to address the race and intelligence issue for it) but he's since written extensively on the topic of black/white disparities in IQ. So who disputes Tucker's summary? Professor marginalia (talk) 19:07, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * For the record, I was never particularly satisfied with this sentence in the “history” article. Even before this thread, I suspected that it was a BLP violation.  The reason I didn’t continue to dispute it on the article talk page is because it used to be even worse than this (it used to claim that Jensen wanted to reduce the overall number of blacks), and changing it to the current sentence was the most I was able to get Mathsci to agree to.  I’m glad that it’s finally been removed completely now. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Err, speaking as an uninvolved editor who's looking at the way this discussion is going, I think there is a consensus developing here that this isn't a BLP vio. If that is the case, the content is unlikely to remain completely removed from the article for too much longer, pending any further sources and appropriate minor copyedits that become necessary prior to putting the content back in. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:47, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thus far, the only editors other than Mathsci saying that they think it’s definitely not a BLP violation are Professor marginalia and RegentsPark. Both of them have been following Mathsci around and supporting him on most the race-related articles that he edits, and I could have predicted both that they would show up in this thread and that they would express support for Mathsci even before they posted anything here.  Mathsci probably thinks the same thing about my support of David.Kane’s viewpoint, so the people whose opinions should really make a difference in determining whether or not this is a BLP violation are those of them who don’t have any sort of stake in this dispute: you, Rvcx, Off2riorob, and Slp1.  So far, all of these people who’ve expressed opinions here have agreed that the sentence shouldn’t be in the article. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:15, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a surprise to me. Actually I don't see any reason why it would be a BLP violation. The Tucker book is an excellent source and verifies the disputed content, though as I said, based on that source "teaching methods" would be preferred rather than "curricula".--Slp1 (talk) 20:37, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * "Both of them have been following Mathsci around and supporting him on most the race-related articles that he edits, and I could have predicted both that they would show up in this thread and that they would express support for Mathsci even before they posted anything here." OKAY-well. I'm going to take a deep breath and allow you some opening to save some face by letting you explain or retract this bold-faced mischaracterization of my role in your two disputes before tearing into you.  Ten-nine-eight... Professor marginalia (talk) 20:42, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * “Actually I don't see any reason why it would be a BLP violation.”


 * All right, but you hadn’t specifically expressed that opinion before now.


 * Professor Marginalia: I don’t think you can argue with the fact that at least 90% of the time, you’ve taken Mathsci’s side whenever we’ve been involved in disputes over these articles.  There isn’t anything inherently wrong with that:  as I said, the same is probably also true of myself and David.Kane.  However, I think the question of whether or not this is a BLP violation should be decided primarily by editors who are uninvolved in this dispute.  Otherwise, we might as well just be debating on the article talk page the same as usual.


 * If the uninvolved editors here reach a consensus that this sentence is not a BLP violation, though, I’ll accept it not being removed from the article. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:04, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You are way out of line. My involvement extends to two disputes in a single article-both resolved until one of them was re-raised here with this claim that Tucker isn't adequate for a BLP.  And this sent  me here to discuss it.  You are way, way out of line. Stop trying to poison the well. Professor marginalia (talk) 21:44, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you not agree that it’s best for the answers to disputes like this to be determined by uninvolved editors, rather than by the editors who are having the dispute? When I refer to the editors who are having the dispute, I’m including myself and David.Kane, not just you, Mathsci and RegentsPark. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:20, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry-you're not getting away with this. You've accused me of following Mathsci around "in race related articles" to throw my support behind his edits "90% of the time." (What exactly is 90% of a total of 2 times?) Frankly, my involvement in even that one article is very scant and results directly from my periodic help to resolve disputes on a noticeboard like this one, No original research/Noticeboard, where someone posted a request for help from uninvolved editors.  That's what I brought me into the picture.  The disputes keep being rolled over to other boards--how many WP noticeboards have been solicited to step in now?  At some point it starts to smack of editors' forum shopping. Professor marginalia (talk) 23:00, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * All right, if what you’re saying about becoming involved in the article as a result of a request at the NOR noticeboard is correct, I admit that I was wrong to assume you’ve been following Mathsci around in order to support him. Mathsci has several users who do this (RegentsPark is a more obvious example), and when I saw you suddenly showing up and agreeing him when he needed someone else’s support in his disputes, I assumed you were another example of the same thing.  But it looks like that may have been an overly hasty assumption in your case.
 * Ah, my integrity is being impugned! While I do believe that long-term Single Purpose Accounts, such as yours, should be topic banned from articles of your single interest, beyond that I have little interest in following mathsci around. It would appear that one of the dangers of being an SPA with a particular POV is that you see the world in terms of 'us' vs 'them'. I assure you that if the sources were not so reliable, I would not support mathsci in this case. Perhaps it would be more useful if you would focus on the question at hand rather than on the motivations of the editors commenting on the matter. --RegentsPark (talk) 23:51, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I know I’ve said this before, but this has nothing to do with motives or integrity. All it has to do with is who can be considered uninvolved, whereas who has a personal stake in this dispute.  You were one of the two main admins supporting Mathsci in his most recent AN/I thread about me, you supported him in the history of the race and intelligence controversy article, and as soon as he became involved in the Snyderman and Rothman (study) article, you showed up to support him there also.  I’m not suggesting that this involves anything other than good faith on your part; perhaps you just happen to be interested in all of the same articles that he is, and have the same viewpoint about all of them as he does.  But when a dispute is being brought to a noticeboard like this one, the purpose of discussing it here is to listen to input from uninvolved editors, not from the editors who are long-term participants in the dispute.  (And this applies to me as well as you.)


 * Do you understand what I’m saying about this? Based on the way you’re describing my comment as being about motives, it sounds like you don’t, but I don’t know how to explain it any more clearly than this. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that you are misrepresenting my position. I have no personal stake in this issue. I have a general interest in understanding the nature of long-term SPAs on wikipedia articles but, other than that, I have no other interest in mathsci or in you and I am perfectly capable of approaching any micro question dispassionately. The rest of what you say makes very little sense to me. Are you suggesting that the moment an editor has commented on a matter, in whatever capacity, he or she cannot comment on any other related issue or that these comments should be ignored? That makes no sense. Now, let us focus on the matter at hand rather than on each others motivations. --RegentsPark (talk) 00:23, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * What I’m saying is that when a dispute gets brought to a noticeboard, the entire purpose of bringing it there is to get the opinions of editors who aren’t involved in the dispute. Some of the times that I’ve been involved in disputes over these articles, when they were posted about at a noticeboard (usually the NPOV noticeboard), all of the same people who were arguing on the article talk page began arguing in the noticeboard thread instead, and there were no comments in the thread from anyone else.  When that happens, the noticeboard thread becomes nothing but an extension of the article talk page, and posting about the dispute at this noticeboard accomplished nothing at all.


 * That’s the most severe way this can go. Obviously nothing of that caliber is happening here, but the same general principle still applies.  Since the purpose of posting about something at a noticeboard is in order to get outside opinions about it, having participants in the article talk page repeat the same opinions that they’ve been repeating throughout the dispute does not work toward the goal that posting about it at the noticeboard was intended to accomplish.  This is the reason why I haven’t gone into much detail here about why I think these sentences don’t belong in the articles—I’ve already made my opinion about these questions abundantly clear on the article talk page, so now that we’re specifically requesting outside opinions from uninvolved editors about this, what would it accomplish for everyone to hear my own opinion again?


 * The same question applies to you also. Based on your comments on the article talk pages, I think we all knew what your opinion about this was even before you posted anything about it here.  And if this thread turns into just another argument between you, me, Mathsci and David.Kane, we’ll no longer be accomplishing anything by discussing it here rather than on the article talk page.  This has nothing to do with motiviations; all it has to do with is making sure we’re using this noticeboard in a way that can provide the service that it’s intended to provide.  Do you understand the point I’m making now? --Captain Occam (talk) 00:45, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Now, with due respect, you are going way beyond misrepresentation. I have barely commented on articles on race and intelligence and I certainly have no interest in pushing this viewpoint of that (hard to believe, but whole days go by without my giving any thought to race or to intelligence!). My opinion on this matter is limited to the following. Apparently Campbell is a 'famous psychologist (David Kane things so). A famous psychologist has something to say about Jensen. Therefore the matter is not a BLP issue. A different article says something about Jensen and attributes it to Tucker 2002 and Jensen 1968. The sources seem to bear out what is said. Therefore it is not a BLP issue. I won't be disingenuous and claim that I don't believe that mathsci is doing a fine job in trying to balance these articles but I certainly will not support any edits that are unsourced or are BLP violations for any reason whatsoever. I'm always willing to admit that I could be wrong, but attributing my positions to some blind adherence to this viewpoint is incorrect. --RegentsPark (talk) 01:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Where in my comment did I accuse you of blind adherence or POV-pushing? You’re arguing against claims about you that I’ve never made.  All I said was that you were one of the users expressing your opinion in the debates over these issues on the article talk pages, no differently than everyone else who’s been debating there.  We can debate how heavily involved you were, but it isn’t really important; the only thing that matters is that you can’t be considered a completely uninvolved editor here the way people like Rvcx can.  (Just as I can’t.) --Captain Occam (talk) 02:44, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Alright. I'll let this pass. However, in general, it is not a good idea to accuse editors of 'following' other editors around and of having a predisposition to a certain point of view. As I say above, comment on the matter at hand rather than on other editors. Wikipedia is not a battleground and there is no reason to believe that we (you and I) will take the opposite view on whatever argument shows up. Neither is Wikipedia consensus built around the number of editors supporting a view, but rather on the quality of the arguments presented. --RegentsPark (talk) 11:46, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, now that Jimbo Wales has stated his opinion in this thread that articles here can’t accuse Jensen of advocating this idea unless Jensen has said that he advocates it in his own words (and I agree with Jimbo about this), I’m not really sure what there is left to discuss about whether or not the article can say this about Jensen. Based on my understanding of Wikipedia’s decision-making hierarchy, Jimbo’s opinion about this carries more weight than all the rest of ours combined. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:00, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Can you please answer my own question now? --Captain Occam (talk) 23:23, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Several administrators are watching things. Recently you left 4 messages on user talk pages requesting Varoon Arya, Victor Chmara, Mikemikev and David.Kane to "help" you in editing race-related articles. just left you a message on my talk page which you might want to read. Mathsci (talk) 23:31, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the Tucker text (which I happen to have in front of me, I just happen to be in the library!), and the Jensen 1969 paper available online, I think that the statement in the History of the race and intelligence controversy is well cited and should be restored. There is nothing controversial about this. --RegentsPark (talk) 19:21, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * In terms of the Tucker and Jensen cited claim reverted in the "History of " article, this is a "non-issue". Perusing the LIFE profile linked above, Jensen even further emphasizes the effect of high birth rates in the black population 'in particular, essentially complaining that this was the most "explosive" finding in his 1969 paper yet one too often overlooked by those remarking about it! This is why I'm bewildered what the fuss is about--Jensen does not dispute the view represented in Tucker!  Instead there's been overzealousness here to reshape the debate in a more "balanced" way by describing the actual controversy as something else than what really took place, one much less explosively framed than the first time round. Professor marginalia (talk) 20:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've read the LIFE profile and I still don't see support for the wording being proposed. It's clear that Jensen believes there is a strong genetic effect on intelligence; he thus theorizes that eugenics could increase intelligence. What's more, he observes that if you buy into the genetic effect, then current reproductive trends are making racial intelligence disparities larger. These contentions could be used to support the theory "we should breed black people to make them smarter"—and some people have—but there's no evidence that Jensen used them to support that view. You can blame a theoretical physicist for helping to build the atomic bomb, but you can't claim that he wanted to drop it. Rvcx (talk) 20:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * You know I think the disputes are becoming too muddled and the issues are that much more difficult to sort out. There were two claims in the revert-and the first, "with the suggestion that eugenics was more likely to increase the average intelligence in the US than remedial education for blacks" separate from the second, "He also concluded that some kind of eugenic intervention was needed to reduce the birthrate of those with low IQs, and third, "particularly in the black population, and that as students they should be taught by relying on their ability to associate rather than understand, i.e. learning by rote, not through conceptual explanation."  Is there a secondary source for the first one? Clearly Jensen does say the first statement applied to increasing intelligence overall, but believing that a "positive eugenics" program has no popular support, he doesn't focus on it at all.  It would be untrue to say he advocated it for blacks or anyone else, and without a secondary source I agree there isn't enough to for WP to associate him making such a prediction for blacks in particular either.  Professor marginalia (talk) 20:57, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hard to imagine, but I think we agree! The first statement seems fine to me; the second at the very least should be rephrased to eliminate the implication that Jensen was advocating for eugenics among the black population. It's fair to say that he saw a disparity in intelligence between blacks and whites that he thought would grow without eugenic intervention (which I think is all the article really wanted to get across in the first place). I'm happy with the LIFE profile and his 1969 paper as sources for that contention. Rvcx (talk) 21:07, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, to clarify, he did advocate a "negative eugenics" approach for the black population (this is sourced in Tucker who I think phrased it as "some kind of eugenics"). My concern is find a secondary source for the first claim, that he suggested "eugenics was more likely to increase the average intelligence in the US than remedial education."  It's not a stretch, by any means, to say he did. It's practically the inevitable logical conclusion one would attribute to Jensen based on the case he presented in this paper - I'm asking what secondary sources were used to back it up.  Professor marginalia (talk) 21:18, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * About the Campbell issue, am I to believe that we, at wikipedia, are supposed to parse the comments of 'famous psychologists' to determine which statements are motivated by their personal likes and dislikes? If the statements need to be so parsed, I suggest that we look for reliable secondary sources that state which statements of these psychologists can be relied upon and which cannot. Lacking such secondary sources, I suggest we report these statements in the context of the subject matter being discussed. --RegentsPark (talk) 19:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, Tucker's book also says what Campbell says, with a minor distinction: 'teaching methods' instead of 'curricula'. ("Jensen argued that minority schoolchildren were hampered neither by discrimination nor deprivation; their poor educational performance was a consequence of teaching methods that had been appropriate for white middle-class students but not for minorities, who did not respond to conceptual explanations because of the genetic limitations in their intelligence but who could nevertheless be taught be relying on their ability for association rather than understanding...conclusions of Jensen's article thus were both educational and social: rote memorization to improve the skills of low-IQ black children unable to appreciate abstract principles and some sort of eugenic intervention designed to reduce their numbers.") Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:40, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

<=Here is a longer passage from page 148 of Tucker(2002), preceding the one I gave above. This is what RegentsPark is talking about

"In 1969, Jensen produce the article that would become the centerpiece of Shockley's campaign to impose his views on the NAS and the public. In this lengthy and inflammatory work - the longest publication in the history of Harvard Educational Review, taking up almost the entire winter issue - Jensen argued that the minority schoolchildren were hampered by neither discrimination nor deprivation; their poor educational performance was a consequence of of teaching methods thats had been appropriate for white middle-class students but not for minorities, who did not respond to conceptual explanations because of the genetic limitations in their intelligence but who could nevertheless be taught by relying on their ability for association rather than understanding [] The conclusions of Jensen's article were thus both educational and social: rote memorization to improve the skills of low IQ black children unable to appreciate abstract principles and some sort of eugenic intervention designed to reduce their numbers" Mathsci (talk) 19:40, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

This really is going in circles. My point is that Mainstream_Science_on_Intelligence is an article about a statement published in the Wall Street Journal. It's entirely appropriate to mention criticism that statement received, and Campbell's criticism is worth including, but it's not appropriate to give wp:undue weight to particular bits of that criticism. Campbell offers some very solid criticism, but out of a six-page rebuttal littered with citations, Wikipedia quotes one tiny unsourced ad-hominem attack that Campbell includes at the end. It's not mentioned in either the abstract or the summary at the end. It is in no way a major part of his criticism. Even if it's a reliable source for the statement about Jensen's beliefs (which may be relevant in another article), it is wp:undue for the Mainstream_Science_on_Intelligence article to take a detour specifically for the purpose of rubishing Jensen along the way. For the record, here is Campbell's summary:

I admit that wading through the academic language is tough, but it's crazy to suggest that Jensen's biases are a major component of this critique. Rvcx (talk) 19:57, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I see that we're no longer talking about a BLP violation. Now you're writing as if you're an editor on both articles and sharing your editing experience. I hope that you remember that the paer here  was put together after Donald T. Campbell had expired in 1996. In Mainstream Science on Intelligence, all the sources that were found (not written by consignatories of course) were summarised in their entirety. That applies equally to this, so there is  no argument at all for WP:UNDUE, in fact exactly the contrary. Campbell  discusses the WSJ page in great detail mentioning particular points (it is in fact a reworking of a draft letter to the WSJ - I haven't been able to determine what happened to the draft letter). You have decided on a whim that his discussion of point 25 should be omitted. Nut you are arguments are singularly unconvincing and not based on any ocre wikipedia ediitng policy, just you own whimsy. If you have now dropped the possibility that this is a BLP violation, then presumably this thread will be archived and your edits reverted. That seems to be the consensus so far. Mathsci (talk) 20:39, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * In your preferred version of Mainstream_Science_on_Intelligence the critique is not accurately summarized; instead one minor point is picked out and given prominence. I simply don't see how devoting fully half of the space given to the Campbell paper to a tiny addendum of his argument—an addendum that is not mentioned in either the abstract or summary—could be seen as anything other than wp:undue. Rvcx (talk) 20:49, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not WP:UNDUE as RegentsPark has mentioned, since all the other points  mentioned by Campbell are summarised. At present you are misrepresenting Campbell's  article. This page is normally for BLPs and you have now apparently dropped the BLP claim. RegentsPark and other experienced editors have explained  that the arguments for removing the dicussion of point 25 are unjustified by WP policy.


 * If there's no BLP violation please could you now self-revert both of the last edits you made to History of the race and intelligence controversy and Mainstream Science on Intelligence. If you still feel strongly about WP:UNDUE, you can bring that up afterwards on the article talk page[s] as an editor, but not here. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 21:07, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Are we seriously debating whether we can say that Jensen wrote pieces advocating different education based on race without bothering to find the place where he said it? 212.183.140.36 (talk) 21:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * No; that's not what we're debating. We're debating the relevance of Jensen's views to Campbell's critique of the WSJ statement, and we're debating whether Jensen's advocacy for eugenics can be asserted without attribution. Rvcx (talk) 21:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

-I can't even tell how many disputed claims are involved in the above discussion. They're almost impossibly tangled. Each one either should be broken out and dealt with individually, or they should return to the appropriate articles be ironed out there. Here can we get some understanding of what constitutes a "biased" source? Volumes have been written about Arthur Jensen and his various claims about race and intelligence. Nearly everything he has written or said on the topic is controversial--so by what criteria are the sources to be judged as to this "bias" issue? Because I keep seeing challenges to this or that claim because it "sounds bad" but that I very strongly doubt Jensen himself disagrees with. Jensen tends to be one to admit he said this or that but frequently views his critics as being irrational or unscientific to take emotional or personal offense to it. Professor marginalia (talk) 22:07, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * As far as I can make out, the original question is this. Smith said X, and we have references where he says it.  Jones, Robinson, etc said that Smith said Y and we have references where Jones, Robinson etc say that.  Statement Y is more controversial than statement X and might be held to reflect badly on Smith.  No-one can point to a reference where Smith actually says Y, although it might be implicit in the way he said X.  Should we write "Smith said Y" and cite Jones, Robinson etc?  Should we write "Jones said that Smith said Y" and cite Jones?  Should we write nothing?  And finally, the question relevant to this board: does it make a difference that Smith is still alive and the subject of a BLP?  Zarboublian (talk) 12:12, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * We have four sources now that summarise the paper of Jensen in the same way about differential teaching. The two new ones can be seen in bold at the top of this thread. However all make it clear that the paper of Jensen was speculative - a set of "what ifs" and other conditionals. Sources 3 and 4 are Freeman and Pyle, who are authors of textbooks. There is also a 5th source - the book of James R. Flynn on Jensen, Race and IQ. It also summarises Jensen's paper in exactly the same way: Jensen's theory of 2 kinds of intelligence (level I, level II), Jensen's statements that African Americans genetically seem to have less of Level II, which is connected with cognitive rather than associative ability. he then makes his suggestions of learning methods based round level I, learning by assoication and memorization. Maunus gives other sources above, also at the top of thread. For exmaple the book of Alland.


 * As far as eugenics are concerned, there is a summary of Jensen's 1969 article in Adrian Wooldridge's book which quotes the whole of Jensen's phrase about "eugenic foresight" and "genetic enslavement". Those phrases are discussed in several other sources in context, e.g. Peter Schonemann's article in the 1987 of Mogdil2  on Jensen, Consensus and Controversy mentioned above. Jensen's suggestion  for "genetic foresight" concerning African Americans is repeated in several places, including by Jensen himself. For example in the  Philosophy of Education by J. J. Chambliss (p 262). Mathsci (talk) 12:58, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The trouble is your repeated WP:SYNTH that takes any mention, whether in primary or secondary sources, of "eugenic foresight" and "genetic enslavement" as meaning that Jensen endorses eugenics "particularly for black people". The text we use in the Wikipedia article matters. Textbooks have already taken Jensen's work and removed some of the subtleties to summarize it, and now you're in danger of taking the next step and removing the nuances of those textbook summaries. I just can't understand why you're so adamant about defending the text instead of adapting it. Jensen's theories about the consequences of eugenics on black people are well-documented, as we all seem to agre? e. Stop trying to turn him into a politician on a crusade and write about him as a scientist. The story "Oppenheimer wanted to kill Japanese people" may be a simple way to justify his work on the atomic bomb, but it's not a reliably-sourced viewpoint. Rvcx (talk) 13:29, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by WP:SYNTH,since those phrases occur in the same sentence (see below). Here is the summary of the 123 page paper as it is now, designed so that as many direct quotes as possible from the original article are used (exactly as Jimbo mentioned) provided they have been cited in secondary source, the main source being the skilful and neutral work of the management editor of the Economist Adrian Wooldridge, a D.Phil. in history:

Mathsci (talk) 16:10, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * MathSci: Kudos to you. This version is much better. Why not post it at the History of R&I talk page and seek feedback? That is probably the best place to continue the discussion. I only have two minor quibbles with the phrasing that you have above. David.Kane (talk) 20:56, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have started a conversation about MathSci's new version here. I would say that content discussions should continue there. David.Kane (talk) 12:32, 30 May 2010 (UTC)