Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Laura Kuenssberg

Laura Kuenssberg

 * Editors involved in this dispute
 * 1) – filing party


 * Articles affected by this dispute


 * Other attempts at resolving this dispute that you have attempted
 * []

Issues to be mediated

 * Primary issues (added by the filing party)
 * 1) Final paragraph of subject's career section concerning 38 Degrees petition concerning her role at the BBC. There are legitimate sources asserting that the removal of the petition from the 38 Degrees website was suspicious a)because the comments on the petition were not abusive as claimed, and b) that no evidecne of abuse on social media has been produced either by 38 degrees or any other source. The given reasons for the removal of the petition have now passed into the realm of popular assumption and are frequently repeated by the media without any supporting evidence.

Several other users have repeatedly removed the sentences I added, in which I used the Huffington post as a principal source, which merely state that questions surrounding the removal of the petition were raised. If mention of the removal of the petition is to be included in the subject's career section, it would constitute undue bias to omit the fact that the given reasons for that removal had been questioned. The reasons given for other users actions, such as the suggestion that the Huffington Post is not a legitimate source, seem to me to be entirely spurious.

On a more general level there is a growing perception, which I share, that accusations of abuse, be it racial or sexual, are being misused to suppress legitimate political debate. One would hope that users of Wikipedia would not be party to such disreputable practices.

The article is a BLP of a prominent political journalist. Like many prominent political figures she has been the subject of a 38 degrees petition calling for her removal; the only reason why this is notable is because the petition received some coverage in reliable sources because of "sexist and misogynist" language used to promoting the petition and the petition author and host website subsequently and unprecedentedly agreed to take it down because they disapproved of the sexist sentiments being used by others to promote the petition. There is no real debate over the merits of a brief reference to the petition, which is adequately conveyed with the well sourced text in the article
 * Additional issues (added by other parties)
 * Following the 2016 local elections, a petition on 38 Degrees was begun accusing Kuenssberg of being biased against the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn and called for her dismissal. The petition was later withdrawn by David Babbs, executive director of 38 Degrees, citing an association with "sexist and hateful abuse made towards Laura Kuenssberg" on other social media websites such as Twitter. 

I'm quite willing to see the wording of this improved a little (the grammar of the first sentence needs some work)

The above editor introduced a claim, sourced to WP:FRINGE conspiracist blogger Craig Murray that the sexist abuse directed towards the article subject was imagined by the various parties reporting on it and after it was removed by another editor on BLP grounds, repeatedly reinserted it on inappropriate grounds such as "as a current issue, much of the relevant information is to be found in blogs". Eventually they switched to cherry picking quotes from a Huffington Post comment piece to make their claim the sexist abuse did not happen, and continued to edit war. Unfortunately the edits User:Slightlymuddy has made thus far are badly sourced, misrepresent quoted people and are of minimal relevance to the article subject, and as they have freely noted above were made with the intent of using Wikipedia to challenge the reliably-sourced media view of a politically charged (but incredibly insignificant) event, which is not Wikipedia's purpose.

Specific issues with the version that User:Slightlymuddy is promoting are:
 * 1) The "legitimate source" which the above editor claims asserts "the removal of the petition from the 38 Degrees website was suspicious" in fact is highly critical of the petition and indeed asserts "It was perhaps not unexpected that the petition against Ms Kuenssberg descended into misogyny and abuse". It merely acknowledges there was "some speculation" that might have been part of a campaign to discredit the petition.
 * 2) The status of the HuffPo as a WP:RS appears to be somewhat ambiguous, but what is not ambiguous is that a HuffPo comment piece author oblique referring to "some speculation" is not adequate sourcing for the existence of the existence of a "controversy" not referred to in the many mainstream media accounts of the event.
 * 3) The better version of the text states that the petition was removed due to  an association with "sexist and hateful abuse made towards Laura Kuenssberg" on other social media websites such as Twitter. User:Slightlymuddy keeps removing this whilst inserting claims there were few sexist comments to be found published on the (algorithmically-moderated) 38degrees website. To insert the latter claim to try to discredit the former is disingenuous at best; to remove well-sourced references to "other social media sites" to make the former claim appear more relevant is simply bad faith editing.
 * 4) It is not an important part of Kuenssberg's career and it would be WP:UNDUE weight to treat it as such by creating a detailed discussion of whether sexist comments were made, even if there actually was any reason to doubt their existence.  No source, credible or otherwise, has suggested any involvement by Kuenssberg in any attempts to "suppress political debate", and so her bio is very much the wrong place for editors to use as a WP:COATRACK to insinuate some conspiracy to fabricate sexism to make petition signers look bad.

In short, nobody is suggesting the Kuenssberg article should be set in stone, but the proposed edits are unhelpful Dtellett (talk) 17:14, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Parties' agreement to mediation

 * 1) Agree. Slightlymuddy (talk) 14:33, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
 * 2) Agree. I would have thought this was better satisfied by an WP:RFC, or even by the nominating editor attempting to discuss their rationale for inclusion on the article talk page rather than edit-warring but have no issue with going through this process if it will resolve the issue. The process is of course contingent on Slightlymuddy entering the discussion in good faith, but given their first action after raising this was to make a fifth revert of the day and insist that nobody change their BLP-violating version until this process is concluded, there might be other ways of resolving the conflict... Dtellett (talk) 17:14, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Decision of the Mediation Committee

 * Reject. Fails to satisfy prerequisite to mediation #4, "The parties must have first engaged in extensive discussion of the matter in dispute at the article talk page and discussion only through edit summaries will not suffice". Extensive discussion requires ongoing back-and-forth discussion between the parties. One comment by each party on the talk page does not come close to being sufficient. Even if the discussion had been sufficient, this request would almost certainly have been rejected under prerequisite #9. For the Mediation Committee,  TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 20:13, 4 June 2016 (UTC) (Chairperson)