Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/John254 2

Edit count for John254
User:John254

run at Sat Jan 19 20:18:34 2008 GMT

Category talk:        5 Category:             41 Help:                 1 Image talk:           3 Image:                60 Mainspace             10656 Portal:               24 Talk:                 880 Template talk:        24 Template:             2154 User talk:            9553 User:                 380 Wikipedia talk:       464 Wikipedia:            3900 avg edits per page    1.36 earliest              18:34, 20 May 2006 number of unique pages 20728 total                 28145

2006/5  224 2006/6   880 2006/7   1489 2006/8   1153 2006/9   2674 2006/10  1756 2006/11  1458 2006/12  1606 2007/1   1636 2007/2   1061 2007/3   1203 2007/4   1365 2007/5   1815 2007/6   432 2007/7   1004 2007/8   570 2007/9   736 2007/10  1294 2007/11  1170 2007/12  2143 2008/1   2476

(green denotes edits with an edit summary (even an automatic one), red denotes edits without an edit summary)

Mainspace 31 Masturbation 17 Use of biotechnology in pharmaceutical manufacturing 16 Great Depression 16 Genetically modified food 15 Sex-positive 14 Angeles City 13 Pornography 13 Grover Norquist 13 Fraud 11 Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 10 Non-Euclidean geometry 9 Vince McMahon 9 David Pogue 9 Rainforest 8 Viacom

Talk: 20 Masturbation 10 Pornography/Archive 2 7 Vulva 5 Ejaculation 5 Snoop Dogg/Archive1 4 Scientific theories regarding acupuncture 4 Palms Elementary School 4 Human feces 4 Gay 4 Rachel Marsden 3 Turnover 3 Non-nude photography 3 Jeff Gerstmann 3 Grover Norquist 3 Emory Folmar

Category talk: 2 Articles with unsourced statements 2 Wikipedia Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense

Category: 2 1840 deaths 2 Articles with unsourced statements

Image: 2 X-33628.jpg 2 NHG Subscription.jpg 2 Fractional distillation lab apparatus.png 2 Ugavi.jpg 2 Kristen Alderson.jpg

Portal: 7 Society/Intro 4 Biography

Template: 18 Cent 15 Proposed 7 Unreferenced 6 Policyalteration 5 Ethics-stub 4 WikipediaVandalism 4 Notcensored2 4 TestTemplates 4 Vandalism information 4 Band-stub 3 Blp0-n 3 Sprotected 3 RuneScape 3 Notcensored 3 New England Patriots roster

Template talk: 11 Proposed 5 WikipediaVandalism 2 Sprotected 2 RuneScape

User: 57 John254/monobook.js 25 John254 12 AmiDaniel/Wr 6 Clem23 6 GamePlayer623 5 John254/Revert/monobook.js 4  BrOnXbOmBr21/Destructoid 4 Colipon 4 Agius 4 Propol 3 User At Work/Pols under investigation 3 LegitimateAndEvenCompelling 3 Truth in Comedy 3 Rimmers 3 Habbit

User talk: 311 John254 8  Centrx 8  Ultranet 7  203.131.181.122 7   John254/Archive 2 7  74.12.83.176 6   John254/Archive 1 6  82.27.201.221 5   87.228.165.252 5   210.15.254.36 5   68.14.16.252 5   Dmcdevit 5  Politician818 5  Jeffrey O. Gustafson 5  70.121.7.89

Wikipedia: 1070 Administrator intervention against vandalism 162 Requests for page protection 120 Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents 65  Requests for arbitration 58  Administrators' noticeboard/3RR 43  Counter-Vandalism Unit 43  Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit (third nomination) 41  Vandalism 41  Administrators' noticeboard 36  Deletion review/Log/2008 January 7 32  Deletion review/Log/2007 December 30 27  Deletion review/Log/2008 January 12 27  Requests for arbitration/John Buscema/Workshop 25  Removing warnings poll 20  Requests for arbitration/IRC/Workshop

Wikipedia talk: 103 Semi-protecting policy pages 73 Vandalism 60 Counter-Vandalism Unit 49 Polling is not a substitute for discussion 28 Biographies of living persons 25 Centralized discussion/Removing warnings 14 Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles 10 What Wikipedia is not 9  Criteria for speedy deletion 7  Removing warnings 6  Canvassing 6  Semi-protection policy 6  Protecting children's privacy 4  WikiProject Health 4  Edit war

If there were any problems, please email Interiot or post at User talk:Interiot . Based directly on these URLs: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]


 * The edit count was retrieved from this link at 20:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC).

Lengthy discussion mainly re WP:BLP moved from Requests for adminship/John254 2

 * I know this is going to be jolly bad form, and for that I apologise in advance, but as the issue I wish to raise is important and this RfA might well have closed before I would normally be able to raise the concerns, I feel I have no option but to raise the issues now. John, as a relatively uninvolved party, made several comments on a pending Request for Arbitration relating to the conduct of myself and another administrator, JoshuaZ over edits and page protection relating to Rachel Marsden. I would normally wait for such a case to either be accepted by the Committee or rejected before raising comment, but I feel the concerns I have are important and should be raised here. Firstly, and most importantly, these concerns were raised firstly (and only) with the Arbitration Committee, neither myself (nor Joshua, it would seem) has received any messages on our talk pages from John relating to his concerns. This single issue shows a complete lack of the necessary communication skills vital for this position. Secondly, the statements made by John to the committee are woefully inaccurate and portray events in a matter which is completely contrary to the actual history of the article. There are vast omissions of vitally important information relating to edits made to the article. I have no reason to believe this is in bad faith however but it is a significant worry and suggests that John may inadvertently be unfair and biased when dealing with any similar situations in future. Finally, I'm rather concerned by John's understanding of the BLP policy, his concerns relating to a protection I performed on the Marsden article and content contributed by Joshua would tend to suggest he would remove unflattering material even if such material is presented in a neutral, balanced, fair, and unbiased manner. There's always going to be a little bit of give and take with BLP, one person might think something is a little too negative and vice versa, so discussion to find a compromise is essential. Again, John has entered into no discussions with me over the content of the article other than a response to my comments on the Arbitration Case. Again, I find both his lack of understanding over the policy and complete lack of discussion prior to commenting before the Arbitration Committee to be undesirable traits in a potential administrator. Nick (talk) 11:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * As I listed Rachel Marsden at deletion review and expanded the article, I am an involved party in Requests_for_arbitration, which was filed by another user, and it was proper for me to comment on the request. Now, let's consider Nick's claim that "I'm rather concerned by John's understanding of the BLP policy, his concerns relating to a protection I performed on the Marsden article and content contributed by Joshua would tend to suggest he would remove unflattering material even if such material is presented in a neutral, balanced, fair, and unbiased manner."I never claimed that Wikipedia articles could not contain any negative information concerning their subjects, but rather that our coverage of negative information must not be so disproportionately extensive in comparison to the remainder of an article as to constitute undue weight with respect to the events, in violation of WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. Nick claims that I misrepresented his comments by stating that "I respectfully disagree with Nick's contention that the WP:BLP does not require biographies of living persons to be written in a fair and balanced manner.".  Here's the statement by Nick to which I referred:"The BLP policy is primarily designed to ensure that no unsourced and problematic material is introducted into articles, creating legal problems for the Foundation, it is not some magic policy that can be used to prevent Wikipedia from covering negative issues on a subject. If we have too much fully sourced content from reliable sources, then we should be expanding the article to make the negative material less of an issue, not removing it completely, anything less than that and we're censoring perfectly acceptable material."Both the claim that the requirements of the biographies of living persons policy extend little beyond the prevention of legally actionable defamation, and the assertion that we cannot ever remove well-sourced negative information concerning a living person from an article when such information constitutes undue weight, stand in stark contrast to the understanding of WP:BLP articulated in Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden and Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff, and effectively amount to a rejection of the requirement that biographies of living persons be written in a fair and balanced manner.   Furthermore, even Jimbo Wales himself shares my concerns that the version in which Nick protected the article gives undue weight to negative information concerning Rachel Marsden:"I have concerns about WP:UNDUE in this article, regarding the 'stalking' stuff, particularly as it relates to the most recent news stories, which seem to me to be nothing more than tabloid trash. (He said, she said, the authorities looked into it and nothing happened, it isn't even a story but at most a lover's quarrel that the tabloid media pounced on because they love trash.)"John254 13:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Firstly, you could have quoted Jimbo's entire statement which, when presented in it's entirety supports my understanding of the BLP. For those of you who haven't read the diff, Jimbo then goes on to say. "But in any event, one thing that can help with undue weight issues is the adding of actually interesting and verifiable information like this, so I encourage further efforts in this area.". That's exactly what I said above, which broadly speaking was "instead of censoring unflattering material, include further content to further balance the article". I'm still awaiting you raising these concerns regarding the protection on my talk page though. It seems it's Arbcom and Jimbo you've raised the concerns with, not the actual administrator involved. Secondly, you plucked this "I respectfully disagree with Nick's contention that the WP:BLP does not require biographies of living persons to be written in a fair and balanced manner." from thin air. I never suggested that the policy doesn't require biographies to be written in a fair and balanced manner, I suggested the main reason for the policy is to prevent unsourced and problematic material being introduced into the article and creating legal problems for the foundation, that comment, by it's very nature would cover material which even if fully sourced and referenced correctly, could constitute a legal problem due to the nature of how it is written, who contributed it and so on. So in my response, I note, once again, that you are continually omitting important material and characterizing actions and edits made by others in such a way as to support your interpretation of policy and content. I do care about your lack of understanding when it comes to the BLP policies, but I'm more concerned with the way you, apparently deliberately omit material you present to others and twist what others say. That's the main reason I expanded my Oppose above and it's still the main reason I think you should not be an administrator at this time. Nick (talk) 15:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Nick claims that I "apparently deliberately omit material you present to others and twist what others say" This is a rather inappropriate statement to make, while simutaneously misrepresenting comments by Jimbo Wales.  Nick asserts that Jimbo Wales' statement"But in any event, one thing that can help with undue weight issues is the adding of actually interesting and verifiable information like this, so I encourage further efforts in this area."actually means"instead of censoring unflattering material, include further content to further balance the article"However, it's fairly clear from the prepositional phrase "But in any event" that Jimbo Wales means to imply that addition of favorable material (whether or not possible in a particular case) is an additional remedy for issues of undue weight, not the exclusive remedy.  Indeed, it's fairly obvious that to maintain a fair and balanced article on Rachel Marsden, we must be able to remove excessive quantities of unfavorable material, since the sheer volume of well-referenced criticism of Rachel Marsden greatly exceeds the amount of well-sourced favorable information that is avaliable for inclusion.  The finding of the Arbitration Committee in Requests_for_arbitration/Rachel_Marsden supports the contention that it may sometimes be necessary to remove well-sourced negative information concerning living persons to achieve balance:"Any user may convert a grossly unbalanced biography of a living person to a stub. Any administrator may delete the article and its talk page. Biographies_of_living_persons provides that biographies of living people should be written responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. While a strategy of eventualism may apply to other subject areas, badly written biographies of living persons should be stubbed or deleted."Nick's statement that he"never suggested that the policy doesn't require biographies to be written in a fair and balanced manner, I suggested the main reason for the policy is to prevent unsourced and problematic material being introduced into the article and creating legal problems for the foundation, that comment, by it's very nature would cover material which even if fully sourced and referenced correctly, could constitute a legal problem due to the nature of how it is written, who contributed it and so on."is incorrect.  The law does not require biographies of living persons to be fair and balanced, but only stipulates that they must not include any false and defamatory information.  A biography of a living person comprised entirely of well-referenced negative information is not libelous -- but it is a serious violation of our biographies of living persons policy, except in the case of persons notable only for negative events, such as major criminals.  Nick should not be misrepresenting the law so as to claim that his statement regarding the purpose of WP:BLP doesn't mean what it says. John254 16:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The Foundation receives complaints regarding biographies where the legal action being discussed or threatened is not due to the presence of libelous content or for defamation, but harassment from the user who added the content or civil proceedings over loss of earnings relating to the content of an article, or for any one of a number of other reasons. That's one of the reason why our policies in this are so extensive, we're trying to balance writing a good quality encyclopedic article with an article which leaves the Foundation free from concerns over legal action of any sort for all possible reasons, however far fetched. I never said what sort of legal action we try to avoid, I was trying to use the term "legal action" in the widest possible sense. I would ask that in future you ask that I clarify my comments rather than assuming I am discussing something specific, as you did above. It might also be sensible to move some of this discussion to the talk page as it's getting quite long now. Nick (talk) 16:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * While the Wikimedia Foundation may receive all sorts of legal complaints, this does not imply that the complaints have merit -- after all, anyone can complain. "The content of this article is perfectly true, but it isn't fair and balanced" does not constitute a valid legal complaint.  More fundamentally, however, the assertion that the biographies of living persons policy is primarily designed to avoid legal liability of any nature is inconsistent with the purpose of the policy as articulated in Requests_for_arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff:"Wikipedia articles that present material about living people can affect their subjects' lives. Wikipedia editors who deal with these articles have a responsibility to consider the legal and ethical implications of their actions when doing so."In other words, the policy relates to the ethical issues raised by our articles, not just preventing the Foundation from being sued. John254 17:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)