Talk:Ben Judah

Notability tag

Reddogsix, I'm removing the notability tag, a Google search seems to confirm WP:GNG is met. If you look it over and still have concerns, you may want to consider AfD. Alhanuty, I've added some links, but others still might come across this article and think it is non-notable; it still needs some work. Best wishes, Boleyn (talk) 08:10, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Questionable citations

In the first section alone, there were multiple sentences that stated facts not found in the referenced URLs. The later sections are not any better. Due to the large amount of edits made by anonymous users, I've marked this article under WP:AUTO. Watbe (talk) 17:22, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I've crossed checked the references and they seem to match up.Stephleung (talk) 18:02, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I have crossed referenced citations and they add up. Have removed as WP:Auto as there is nothing that could be challenged for neutrality. David Nahoum (talk) 14:02, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I've removed dead links to articles. It seems a stretch to suggest he 'covered' various wars on the basis of a now-dead link.

Similarly, I've removed the reference to him being a regular guest on BBC etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JJMysterio (talk • contribs) 14:35, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Anonymous IP addresses removed section on journalistic controversies and re-inserted author flattery. The controversies are all well-sourced with multiple references to high-quality publications. No clear reason for removal. Suggest marking under WP:AUTO ? SandraMayM (talk) 01:45, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I've read into the edit war over the claims made around Judah's inaccuracies and have suggested two small changes to the text. Judah claims in the entry that Politico & the New York Times 'stood by his reporting'. This is unsubstantiated. The New York Times piece was subjected to widespread ridicule in the British press and multiple inaccuracies were pointed out and evidenced. There is no evidence that the New York Times was contacted and asked to update the piece. Hence the claim that it 'stood by' the reporting is specious. Similarly I have searched but found no statement from Politico re the Sikorski piece. Jindobry (talk) 11:30, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

For reference I am pasting the deleted section from the article below. The inaccuracies were abundantly sourced from multiple well-regarded publications. These have been removed from the article although they are correctly sourced according to Wikipedia best practice. The current claim that the NY Times 'stood by' the article, on the other hand, is unsourced other than that the piece is on the website:

In 2014, he wrote a piece for the New York Times in which he cited Russian oligarchs living in London's new Shard tower as evidence of the takeover of the city by the Russian elite: "The Shard encapsulates the new hierarchy of the city. On the top floors, “ultra high net worth individuals” entertain escorts in luxury apartments. By day, on floors below, investment bankers trade incomprehensible derivatives." The piece received widespread mockery on social media and rebuttals in the British press which pointed out that the Shard was not full of prostitutes because it was as yet unoccupied. A piece in City AM pointed out apartments weren't just unoccupied they hadn't even been sold. AdWeek said the errors were "too numerous to detail" . The Evening Standard reported Judah defended the piece on social media by claiming it would be true in the future.

The New York Times piece also included other details of the Shard's supposed inhabitants: "Come nightfall, the elevators are full of African cleaners, paid next to nothing and treated as nonexistent. The acres of glass windows are scrubbed by Polish laborers, who sleep four to a room in bedsit slums." Business Insider described the reaction to the piece as "a major backlash" Spears magazine in an editorial said it was right on substance, but the inaccuracies of the factual reporting was "wrong" and "embarrassing"

In a 2016 mostly favourable review of 'This is London' in the Times, John Arldige quoted the factual mistakes in the New York Times piece to question the accuracy of the book noting it does not cite sources and two years on, apartments in the Shard had still not been sold.

Jindobry (talk) 11:38, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

References

‘British French’

Why is he ‘British French’?

Both his parents are English, were born in England and there is nothing in the biography to suggest any substantial French connection. Killimordaly (talk) 17:38, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

The author discusses French heritage and citizenship in this piece.

https://medium.com/@b_judah/islam-and-the-french-republic-from-the-banlieus-to-le-pen-land-92d8a1fbf0e0

Killimordaly (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Nahoum (talk • contribs) 21:05, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Possible vandalism: Undid revision 1039322005 by SandraMayM (talk) WP:3O

User SandraMayM appears to be engaged in disruptive editing. My primary concern is that (talk) and cited critics are taking a piece of creative opinion writing as absolute fact and manufacturing a controversy. The full original contains these paragraphs:

"But London has changed. And the Shard — the Qatari-owned, 72-floor skyscraper above the grotty Southwark riverside — is a symbol of that change.

The Shard encapsulates the new hierarchy of the city. On the top floors, “ultra high net worth individuals” entertain escorts in luxury apartments. By day, on floors below, investment bankers trade incomprehensible derivatives.

Come nightfall, the elevators are full of African cleaners, paid next to nothing and treated as nonexistent. The acres of glass windows are scrubbed by Polish laborers, who sleep four to a room in bedsit slums. And near the Shard are the immigrants from Lithuania and Romania, who broke their backs on construction sites, but are now destitute and whiling away their hours along the banks of the Thames."

However, I believe that we should leave in the Radek Sikorski scandal as that was a notable, widely-written about controversy.

Copying(talk) 0lida0 (talk) 19:11, 18 August 2021 (UTC)0lida0

Hi 0lida0! I made an edit in an attempt to reconcile the two sides of the edit war, with the goal of avoiding having to escalate it to the administrators' noticeboard. Hope it's acceptable to you? Thanks! Bookworm-ce (talk) 19:27, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi Bookworm-ce! Thanks for getting back. It seems a third party has jumped in overnight and streamlined it for us both! It looks acceptable to me now as it points out that the NYT piece envisages an essentially hypothetical / symbolic scenario. Best wishes!

Possible vandalism

JinDobry10 just reverted my edits. They were all carefully sourced and cited. It is especially problematic that he/she has removed employment at think tanks since that appears to be Judah's principal employment. Wikipedia is the source for the think tank's political affiliations. Comment below suggests JinDobry10 is WP:AUTO. I do not have any evidence for that but neither do I wish to engage in an edit war so will leave to someone else to assess, maybe Bookworm-ce?JJMysterio (talk) 14:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

This is what was deleted, most of it was already on the page: JJMysterio (talk) 15:52, 19 September 2021 (UTC) Judah has worked for a series of conservative and other think tanks in the US and UK. From 2017 to 2020, he was a fellow of the conservative American Hudson Institute focussing on kleptocracy. In the UK, he has written reports for the UK's right-wing Legatum Institute . From 2010 to 2012, he was a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He has also been a Visiting Fellow at the European Stability Initiative in Istanbul. He is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the American Atlanticist Atlantic Council.

In 2021, he wrote a report for the right-wing UK think tank, Policy Exchange .

Update I have reverted the edits of JinDobry10 as no-one has stepped into settle this dispute. Judah's principal employment and source of income appears to be from right-wing think tanks so important to include. JinDobry10 also repeatedly removing fact of marriage for unclear reasons. JJMysterio (talk) 05:33, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Response

What we are seeing here from this family of hostile sock puppets including JJMysterio and JinDobry is editing that do not meet the biography of a living person standard.

Firstly:

BLPs should be written responsibly, cautiously and in a dispassionate tone avoiding both understatement and overstatement. Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects, and in some circumstances what the subjects have published about themselves. 

This is clearly not the intention of the editing undertaken which has attempted repeatedly a politically partial, hostile and partisan edit not meeting the neutrality standards of a Wikipedia encyclopedia entry.

Secondly:

These accounts have attempted an editing that violates these terms of the biography of a living person:

Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone. 

Material, as explained in the edits has been selected to manufacture scandal, present a distorted view of matters and quoted tabloid and low quality materials. It is extremely partial, reflecting a partisan agenda, designed to attack the subject. This evidenced through repeated attempts to delete sources, insert politically partisan definitions, or include in the entry an unrepresentative sample of work for political effect.

I will continue to revert edits that do not meet these standards. 

When new information is presented, as in case of think tank employment, I am happy to cooperate to re-insert it in a neutral manner. These accounts, sadly, have shown no willingness to engage in constructive debate and are engaging in vicitimisation with a political agenda. This violates the spirit of Wikipedia which is a neutral source.

JinDobry10 (talk)

Response Hello, thank you JinDobry10 for explaining your rationale here rather than simply engaging in edit warrring as you had previously. Given your intimate knowledge of the subject of the article, can you elucidate why it is inappropriate to include Judah's employment at various think tanks? Especially as it seems this is primary source of employment? To me this seems very important and it is a glaring/deliberate omission to exclude it? (Do you have any response, btw, to the suggestion below that you *are* the subject of the article?) Also, could you explain why in your view it is appropriate to remove (the sourced and referenced) marital status? It's not as important as the above but it is a matter of public record and I don't understand your rationale for repeatedly deleting it. It would be helpful, if you could explain why, in your view, the controversy around the inaccuracies of the NY Times article and Politico articles is irrelevant or as you suggest above 'victimisation with a political agenda'? Neither of these were 'manufactured' scandals. They did actually occur. In the case of the Politico article there were real geopolitical consequences. You've also repeatedly included uncited references to 'standing by the reporting'. Can you offer any substantiation for that? Thank you for engaging.JJMysterio (talk) 16:02, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

References

Multiple Sock Puppet Accounts Attacking Page

This page is under attack by a series of sock puppet accounts with no edit history apart from attacking this page, suggesting a coordinated campaign. These accounts are BlinkTwice22, Jindobry, SandraMayM JJMysterio. This page is now under an edit war and action by editors is needed, Bookworm-ce, 0lida0, Materialscientist. As Bookworm-ce and 0lida0 have noted these accounts are engaging in vandalism and attempting to manufacture controversy. This page needs attention from a specialist editor in this topic such as Philip Cross. Due to the high amount of attacks, edit wars and anonymous IP edits a pending changes protection procedure is advised for this page as a first step.

Hello, I’m one of those cited here as a ‘disruptive sock puppet’. I’d just like to explain my background & interest. I signed up to edit this article because I became suspicious over the sourcing of certain claims made so undertook some simple investigation. It is my contention that it has been largely self-authored and self-edited by Ben Judah. It is my concern that he has used both anonymous IPs & accounts under which he contributes to Wikipedia. These inc for eg User:David Nahoum User:Shanah5782 User:85.240.66.40 User:81.0.36.173, & User:51.6.91.167 User:0lida0 User:JinDobry10 & others. Note: User:Shanah5782 is the (unsigned) author of the above paragraph alleging disruptive editing. The earliest contributors to this article specialised only in contributions to the Wikipedia pages of Ben Judah’s immediate family.

I have not attempted to revert his most recent attempts but instead to engage here. The NYTimes article has multiple inaccuracies that were referenced in multiple well regarded publications. I believe that accounts associated with Judah were responsible for repeatedly removing these and asserting the NYTimes ‘stood by the reporting’ ditto with the Politico article. This is a nonsense unsourced claim: the NYTimes has never made a statement on the reporting. The absence of correction by a newspaper is not positive proof of anything and cannot be used to justify the use of this phrase or the erasure of the substantial body of criticism over the inaccuracies contained within the article.

All of the most recent ‘corrective’ edits including excising whole paragraphs and accusations about sock puppets appear to be from accounts associated with Judah.Jindobry (talk) 17:12, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

0lida0 Hello, I am one of the editors you mentioned. I have a loose professional relationship with Ben in that we move in similar circles because my specialist area is also Russia, and thus I take an interest in his work. However, I do not have any direct personal relationship with him, aside from possibly meeting him once at LSE in 2016 and exchanging very few words. I have very few opinions about him as a human. I will continue to correct what I consider to be malicious and unnecessary edits (and to sporadically write about my favourite K-dramas). Thanks for your concerns, though. — Preceding undated comment added 19:16, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Independent sources

Nearly all of the Career section is sourced to his own writings, which are not independent sources. Other information is taken from his book publisher's site, various author "blurbs" etc. Without independent sources this article fails WP:BLP and will need to be deleted. If you have independent sources, please add them to the article. Lamona (talk) 22:50, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I just added the only independent sources to the article: the reviews of his two books. These are probably enough for the article to meet WP:NAUTHOR but this means that the only appropriately sourced info in the article are his two books. The remainder of the article would need to be removed if it cannot be sourced. I would like to hear if anyone has secondary sources that can be added. Lamona (talk) 17:12, 12 March 2022 (UTC)