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WP:BLPN thread

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I have started a new thread on WP:BLPN to discuss this article – Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Doug Ericksen. — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 12:55, 7 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It is not synthesis to connect the fact that the major opposition party was banned and the idea that an election is free and fair; this is in plenty of reliable sources, including those cited here. It is not "opinionated" to state that the leader of the country is authoritarian; this is in countless reliable sources, including those cited here, I take exception to your claim this is simply the "author's [my] description".
A cited statement that he was "the biggest beneficiary of lobbyist expense accounts" is not merely "allegations" that must be proven in a court of law, it was a fact-based analysis by RS reporters. There are not WP:BLP issues here. If you're concerned about coatracking, you're more than welcome to find positive news stories from his 20 years in the legislature too. Reywas92Talk 21:19, 7 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I see that you dispute my assessment of your edits. In this case, this is best discussed on the WP:BLPN thread which I have initiated, so that we can get third party opinion on the issues. — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 21:28, 7 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have restored the section — you have cited no valid reason under BLP to remove something written neutrally and sourced to high-quality mainstream journalism. Simply handwaving "BLP" is not sufficient — the material in question has impeccable sourcing. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:48, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have added Erickson's response to the lobbyist expense account story from the cited reliable source; this provides Erickson's POV to ensure neutrality. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:55, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the section about the Cambodian elections being a sham is not an original synthesis; it is clearly and extensively discussed in this indisputable reliable source, which goes into great detail about the elections being viewed as a sham *in the context of Erickson's ties to Cambodia*. It is synthesis, certainly, but reliably-sourced synthesis is perfectly allowable. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:01, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@NorthBySouthBaranof: There is currently a discussion underway regarding this biography on the talk page and WP:BLPN. You are required to participate in these discussions, rather than reverting an administrator who has intervened on a page that prima facie appears to be a WP:COATRACK for controversies. You are requested to revert yourself, and participate in the discussion on WP:BLPN, and generate consensus before the disputed material may be reintroduced into the article. Please be aware that the Arbitration Committee has authorized discretionary sanctions (WP:NEWBLPBAN) as far as biographies of living persons are concerned. — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 15:16, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington: I'm well aware of the discretionary sanctions, thank you, and I came to this issue because you posted on WP:BLPN, where I am a regular. You should know that as an administrator, you have no special powers to determine content, and that by removing reliably-sourced material from an article, you have involved yourself in a content dispute; thus, making reference to your administrator status certainly has the appearance of a threat to take administrative action to enforce your preferred POV. You would not do that, certainly? You have cried BLP here, certainly, but simply crying BLP does not mean that policy has been violated. Two editors, including myself, have objected and clearly explained why your removals are objectionable. The material is not questionably or poorly sourced and the wording is, in general, neutral; in fact, I added the article subject's reliably-sourced response to the article. BLP was not meant to be a get-out-of-jail-free card; your bold edits have been reverted and now it's incumbent on you to create consensus for your proposed changes. So please, explain why you believe impeccably-sourced material about Ericksen's lobbyist dinner habits and his strange statement about Cambodia's elections should be removed from this article. Simply invoking "BLP" isn't an answer — why does the material, in your opinion, violate BLP? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:44, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And there is no question that this article is not a very good biography — the solution to that problem is to expand and rewrite the article in a balanced manner, not to simply remove material you view as critical or negative. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:55, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly did not arrive at this travesty of an article with the intention of editing it, therefore your assertion that I have become WP:INVOLVED merely due to removal of allegedly well-sourced material is without merit. Moreover, as an editor who has continued to restore material that is largely critical of the subject of the biography, the onus is on you (editors restoring content that is critical - see WP:UNDUE) to maintain the neutrality of the biography, rather than putting it on those who point out the issues to you. In what sense does the material violate BLP? Well, you have to look no further than the lead section of WP:BLP itself, which succinctly summarizes how BLPs ought to be written: "Biographies of living persons ("BLPs") must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives; the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment." — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 16:17, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I am thoroughly familiar with BLP - I have invoked it many a time. But the onus is always on me to explain my objection and detail why a specific part of the article violates policy. You appear to be either unwilling or unable to do so. Simply regurgitating language from policy on the talk page isn't responsive. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:07, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And the material in question is not "allegedly" well-sourced - it's sourced to The Seattle Times and the Associated Press, which are gold-standard sources. Again, if you think there's a reason to doubt those particular applications of those reliable sources, you need to explain why. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:09, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Neutrality of a biography does not mean there must be as many positive things said about him as negative things, it means everything presented must be written in a neutral manner that follow the sources. Is including reporting from the Seattle Times and AP really "sensationalist" and "titillating" like "a tabloid"? Are we doing harm to the subject here by including what they wrote? Reywas92Talk 21:07, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it did sound sensational and looked like a coatrack of controversies before NorthBySouthBaranof addressed some of the concerns. Beyond the addition of unsourced or unreferenced assertions or allegations, BLP can still be violated when editors place undue emphasis on a specific aspect of BLP subject's life. Neutrality means that you ensure that you provide a holistic view of the life and work of the subject of the biography. This means digging into sources and ensuring that all mainstream views regarding the subject are included in the article, rather than putting the onus of doing that on to the head of the user who points out those issues to you after you have piled on a bunch of controversies on the top of each other. From what I have seen till now, you have personally made very little effort to demonstrate that you are committed to ensuring that NPOV prevails. For your reference, the Arbitration Committee has reiterated the "do no harm" principle in the Editing of Biographies of Living Persons case (originally stated in the badlydrawnjeff case):
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 cases where the appropriateness of material regarding a living person is questioned, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm." This means, among other things, that such material should be removed until a decision to include it is reached, rather than being included until a decision to remove it is reached.
— Nearly Headless Nick {c} 06:34, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@NorthBySouthBaranof: Going by your recent edits, I note that you have made a good faith attempt to improve the article. While I disagree with some of your edit summaries, I will set aside those disagreements for now and attempt to seek redressal of some of the issues right here on the talk page of the article.

  1. In April 2019, Ericksen registered as a foreign lobbyist for the Cambodian government; his consulting company co-owned with former state representative Jay Rodne will be paid $500,000 a year to arrange official visits between the countries and business leaders. — mentioning the contract amount for his company in this case is symptomatic of WP:RECENTISM. This is a context-less data-point, and is neither significant nor important in the long-run.
  2. In May 2013, the Associated Press reported that Ericksen was "the biggest beneficiary of lobbyist expense accounts" among Washington state legislators during the first four months of 2013, receiving the equivalent of US$2,029.30 in free meals. — Similarly, as stated by Masem on BLPN, including the value of the meals received is an out of context presentation of a fact simply because it is available in an RS. Wikipedia articles must be written from the encyclopedic standpoint, that is, aiming at the long-term, historical view.
  3. In November 2016, in response to the protests against Donald Trump, Ericksen authored a bill that would treat some common protest actions, such as blocking traffic and rail lines, as economic terrorism and allow for felony prosecution of individuals who take part in such action. — The portion "in response to protests against Donald Trump" is an interpretation of the Seattle Times writer, rather than a statement made by the subject of the biography himself. I have not seen a source that says that Ericksen proposed this bill in response to the protests against Trump. Therefore, this ought to be excluded in the sentence. The sentence also claims that Ericksen "authored" a bill, although the source included says that he meant to "propose" the bill. It is not clear from the cited source whether this bill was actually brought to the floor of the Washington state senate, and therefore, the assertion needs to be backed up by sources that say so.[1][2]
  4. He returned in July with Representatives Buys, Drew MacEwen, and Brandon Vick to observe the 2018 Cambodian general election, though MacEwen and Vick departed after the U.S. Ambassador warned them about the sham election. — the term "sham election" has been attributed to the US Ambassador to Cambodia in the article, although none of the two sources cited say so. This may be replaced with "[...] departed after meeting with the US Ambassador who expressed concerns regarding the elections."[3]
  5. Ericksen's actions were widely condemned by NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, which said of the delegation, "they hold in contempt the principles of free and fair elections, an independent media, and a neutral election administration—because all those things are lacking in Hun Sen’s Cambodia." — There is no evidence that shows that "Ericksen's actions" were "widely condemned".
  6. Ericksen visited Hun Sen in Phnom Penh in March 2019, where he stated his belief the 2018 Cambodian general election was "free, just and non-violent." — This is a rather exceptional claim made by a source that is known to be closely linked to the Cambodian government. Are there more sources substantiating the claim? As far as I can tell, only Cambodian government linked media reported this, citing Eang Sophalleth, personal secretary to Prime Minister Hun Sen, as having quoted Ericksen.[4] It is more likely that Ericksen described the "voting process" (not the elections, as a whole) as "amazingly transparent" and "incredibly well-conducted" as quoted in this Seattle Times opinion piece.[5] This would not be such a controversial claim to make. In the past, the implementation of the voting process itself has escaped critique, it was the political repression through legal intimidation, and control over media before and after the elections that has borne the brunt of criticism by international organizations (see also, 2013 Cambodian general election).
  7. Cambodia's elections were widely criticized by human rights groups and international observers, and the White House said they were "neither free nor fair and failed to represent the will of the Cambodian people." — This is simply a re-hashing of the critique attributed to Human Rights Watch above. Not only does this come after a potentially dubious statement attributed to Ericksen, it also amounts to original synthesis.

— Nearly Headless Nick {c} 23:09, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • I implemented most of these changes. That's preposterous to separate the voting process from the election, and such simplifying the issue to such nuance is simply continuing the quote in the Times, "This is the basic strategy behind the employment of ‘zombie’ election observers — paying groups with formal-sounding names and eminent individuals with reputable associations to say the poll was free and fair," making me wonder your intentions here. If the quotation as reported by Cambodian media is fabricated, Ericksen has not disputed it. If Ericksen thinks only the voting process was free and just but agrees with the broad consensus that the election a whole was not free and just, he has not said so. Perhaps his "report relaying his sunny observations to the country’s National Election Committee, a group dominated by members of Cambodia’s ruling party" will convey this distinction and match others' concerns? Reywas92Talk 01:35, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would be a bit of a stretch to claim that you have "implemented most of those changes". In the "free meals" case (2), you took one context-less data-point, i.e. "the equivalent of US$2,029.30 in free meals" and replaced it with another context-less data-point, i.e. "free meals, drinks or golf 62 times". The source speaks of this in a rather self-important and tabloidesque manner, and the characterization of Ericksen being the "biggest beneficiary of lobbyist expense accounts" is a bit over the top, especially when the amount concerned is relatively small. The necessity of even having this entire paragraph ought to be looked into per WP:UNDUE.
  • In the "sham election" case (4), you have taken out the misattribution, and re-used the editorializing term again in the text. According to WP:YESPOV, editors must prefer non-judgmental language. Furthermore, the phrase "widely called" is an unsupported attribution (see WP:WEASEL). Instead, "which has been characterized as a flawed election by the White House"[6] may be used in this context, supported by a secondary source.
  • With regard to the use of the term "widely condemned" (5), you have now attributed the condemnation to Governor Inslee while linking to a primary source, and continued to attribute it to "Human Rights Watch and other NGOs". It makes the situation worse, and is a disingenuous violation of WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:NOR, and makes me question your ability to exercise good judgement with regard to this article.
  • In the context of the issue concerning Ericksen being attributed as having said that Cambodia's elections were "free, fair and non-violent" (6), Ericksen does not have to make a counter-claim or a nuanced observation to satisfy your personal concerns. We can only work with what he has actually said, and not what he has purportedly stated or meant. It is clear that none of the available sources attribute the quote to him directly, and make it somewhat obvious that he was quoted by the Cambodian prime minister's personal secretary. This exceptional claim needs to be backed by exceptional sources that substantiate the assertion (see WP:REDFLAG). After all, even the Seattle Times editorial acknowledges that he went there as an election observer. An election observer only observes the polling or the voting process, so it is rather clear that his comments were made in that context. — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 05:49, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • You can call it "tabloidesque" all you want, but that doesn't make the Associated Press and KUOW tabloids.
  • How many of these sources would you like to add to the article to support that it is in fact widely called a sham? The exact words used in the Seattle Times are "widely regarded as a sham election", and I doubt the editors there are in favor of weasel words. Are you going to complain about its use at 2018 Cambodian general election next?
  • Linked to the secondary source. The word "widely" was removed.
  • I added another source with respect to this, in which he repeats the "free, very fair" claim, so you don't need to bloviate any more that it could be something made up by his secretary. He also said "everybody got a vote". The fact that you don't seem to acknowledge that the vote everybody got could not be cast for the banned opposition party whose leader was jailed, which led the CPP to win every single seat, shows Ericksen's and your disingenuousness here. The fact you don't recognize that the sources used point out that the "election observation" itself is a sham to legitimize the fact the system was rigged shows how obtuse you are being. Your bias was also showing in your opposition to calling the 1997 coup a coup. Reywas92Talk 08:01, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yet the reporting in Seattle Times regarding Ericksen's career has been nothing short of sensational. Seattle Times may be a reliable source in general, but it has demonstrated editorial biases when discussing this case and therefore, its opinionated positions and views should be accompanied by an in-line attribution when used. However, as far as the issue with the Associated Press source is concerned, wider community input will need to be sought, since you have not bothered to comment on the specific issue I have raised above.
  • Not all of those sources use the term "sham election", and even if they did you'll find more results for "flawed elections". Since this article is about Doug Ericksen (and not 2018 Cambodian elections), it must neutrally and reliably report facts about Ericksen in a dispassionate manner and in a conservative tone, without the editorializing that the available sources might be susceptible to. The difference between those sources and Wikipedia is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and by its very nature, a conservative project presenting a long-term and historical view of the subject. As I have demonstrated above, even the White House has preferred using the phrase "flawed election" rather than calling it a "sham" outright. The use of the term "sham" is the result of editorializing by the Seattle Times and other publications. In a similar vein, care must be taken while using the HRW/Phil Robertson source given the history of Human Rights Watch with screechy editorials built on poor research methodology and lax fact-checking. On top of this, Phil Robertson publicly called Ericksen a "scumbag" yesterday, hinting at the possibility of some kind of personal animus between the two. Hardly a source that can be considered credible in this particular case.
  • Where does the secondary source say that Governor Inslee specifically "condemned" Ericksen?[7] This is your own interpretation of the events in violation of WP:NOR and has no place in the article. It looks like another disingenuous attempt to stonewall this discussion.
  • The source that you have presented above from the Bellingham Herald is a syndicated opinion piece from the Seattle Times itself[8]. The Seattle Times source used earlier[9] and the one that you have presented above confirm that Ericksen went to Cambodia in 2019 as an election observer. It is in this context that he stated that the process was "free, very fair" and that "everyone got a vote". He also added that "[they] had no violence. No big issues", a clear reference to the polling process. As far my personal biases are concerned, please review WP:HOUND.
— Nearly Headless Nick {c} 14:53, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yet the reporting in Seattle Times regarding Ericksen's career has been nothing short of sensational - That's a very interesting personal opinion you have. We don't base editorial decisions on editors' personal opinions about sources. Unless you have something more to demonstrate this purported "sensationalism" than your own personal opinion, I see no reason to give that opinion any credence here. Are there reliable sources such as media critics which support your opinion that the Seattle Times has not covered Ericksen fairly? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:03, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that might well be my personal opinion, but did you read the remainder of what I wrote on how its opinionated positions ought to be accompanied by an in-line attribution? Does that deviate from what is standard policy in your estimation? — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 17:26, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
For your reference: The Media Bias/Fact Check website highlights that while the Seattle Times scores a "high" on factual reporting, it has a pronounced left-center bias.[10]
"These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias.  They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes.  These sources are generally trustworthy for information, but may require further investigation." (emphasis mine)
Given that the subject of the biography is a Republican politician, with political views probably falling within the "center-right" spectrum, wouldn't you say that it would be a reasonable stance to utilize Seattle Times rather carefully, and ensure that the criticism attributed to it is represented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone? — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 17:46, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

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The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 01:40, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 19 December 2021

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Reliable source at ([11]) for most of the first paragraph of career section, apart from last sentence. Whitsunderland (talk) 23:54, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Thanks for the source. I also added a reference for the last sentence. Kafoxe (talk) 16:47, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2021

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43 notes that the senator died due to complications from covid. While he did test positive the cause of death has not been released and should be stated as such. 2601:602:8706:2F7D:886C:63FF:FECC:BC87 (talk) 04:34, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Done clpo13(talk) 23:44, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To add to article

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To add to this article: what Ericksen was doing in El Salvador in November and December 2021. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 04:43, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also to add to this article: was he vaccinated? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 23:15, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Right now, it's unclear on both counts per this article. clpo13(talk) 23:54, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That fact in itself is rather notable. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 04:44, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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