Talk:Gymnastics at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Women's rhythmic individual all-around

Edit-warring and the "controversy" section

We had quite some edit-warring today, and the ip was finally blocked for 72h. Since I am sure they will come back, we need to discuss the section concerning the claims that Averina should have won and was (intensionally) misjudges. I have written the section myself, and I wanted to reflect three things, all supported by reliable sources:

• There is no "controversy" here, nobody questioned the decision of the judges except for Russians, a protest was filed but denied;
• Averina herself said that she considers herself a winner;
• In Russia, this is really a big deal, not only sport officials and commentators but also pretty much everybody on the state payroll, including the parliament members and the press secretary of the foreign ministry, talks about "stolen win" and all kind of conspiracies.

Now, what the Ip wanted to do.

• To remove the whole piece calling it "Russian propaganda" - it is certainly not propaganda, and is supported by reliable sources. What is propaganda is the reaction of Russian officials, and in my original version I called it propaganda (and one of the sources calls it such), but this was repeatedly removed by another IP, and I have chosen not to edit-war;
• To add terms such as "Russian hypocrisy" or "Russian falsely claimed" - this is not compatible with WP:MOS. We just can not state this in Wikipedia voice, unless we have multiple reliable sources using this term. For the time being, it looks like the IP just wants to express their personal opinion. With all respect, nobody cares about their personal opinion;
• To add a (sourced) statement that in 2019 Averina won the world championship by dropping the apparatus (an error similar to what Ashram just did). This is correct, but in my opinion does not belong to the article, since the article is about, well, gymnastics at the 2020 Summer Olympics. In the current state of the article, this paragraph lacks context, it might have been better contextualized if the competition were explained in much greater detail than it is being explained now - but for such a long explanation we would need reliable sources, which are difficult to impossible to fins. For the time being we do not even say that the Averina sisters were considered absolute favorites to win the competition, and the whole discussion was who of them gets gold, and who would be the bronze medalist. I do not even see sources to write this part, and IMO the 2019 episode just does not belong here.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:48, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Comments

As I see it:

1. the Russian protest of the results has to be mentioned in this article, as you wrote.
2. The usage of the word "propaganda" doesn't sit right with me, and i think a better phrasing should be used.
3. As many Russian protesters, including gymnasts, claimed that Ashram couldn't have won having that she dropped the ribbon — mentioning that Averina dropped the ribbon in the 2018 World Championships, winning gold at the All-Around competition with Ashram placing 2nd seems appropriate.
4. I've seen edits claiming, without a source, the Ashram wasn't deducted points for her drop. This kind of claim must be sources, with an explanation of the rules and criteria regarding apparatus dropping and its penalties, as well as a breakdown of Ashrams actual score and its breakdown.
5. Ashrams win was a big deal even outside of Russia and Israel, as even The New York Times stated it as their leading story in an article titled Seven Olympic Moments Worth Revisiting. Deancarmeli (talk) 14:48, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Ashram got the deduction as far as I know. It should be probably easy to find sources. Probably some actors in Russian claimed she got no reduction, but I do not think it is relevant beyond what is already in the article.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:55, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

My claim came from the other way: Stating anything about a deduction or lack-there-of must be sourced and explained — or shouldn't appear in the article at all. is there is no such source, the Russian claims of no deduction must be stated as unsourced and baseless. Deancarmeli (talk) 15:04, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Well, even the referenced claim of the Russians that there was no deduction could still be in the article irrespectively of whether there was deduction or not. I agree however that the claim is currently unsourced and must be removed.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:09, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

The fact that Russians made a claim is referenced, but the claim itself is baseless and unsourced. If the claim is mentioned, it has to stated as a baseless claim, with a reference citing the making of the baseless claim. Deancarmeli (talk) 15:23, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I think we agree on this. The only factual thing here is that an appeal was filed and then declined.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:57, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

True. Deancarmeli (talk) 15:59, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

As to the actual relevance of dropping the ribbon, I found an article in the Jerusalem Post at https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/sports/olympics-russian-team-attacks-ashrams-win-israel-fires-back-676166/amp which says that there is a standard deduction for this and Ashram clearly got it. It also gives more details on how the scoring works. Animal lover 666 (talk) 05:38, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good reliable source. The 2018 result where Dina Averina dropped the ribbon and won gold where Ashram got silver has to be mentioned and sourced to this article. It shows how this protest is without merit, objectively speaking but it is also not an opinion, it is reliably sourced. The bigger problem here is the use of the word "controversy". The source used in the first paragraph doesn't use the word controversy. The section, if needed at all, should use the title "Appeal by the Russian Team" or "Protest by Russia." There is nothing controversial in dropping the ribbon. Multiple athletes in this competition dropped their apparatus. Dina's twin sister had to change her ribbon in the middle of the routine. And Dina herself dropped it and won gold in 2018. The protest of Russia also is not unique. They are sore losers in many competitions [1] and in this case it is likely the protest is also related to antisemitism. The point here is that using words like "controversy" gives credibility to what is essentially fringe conspiracy theories promulgated by Russian state media. And Wikipedia is not in that business.WP:FRINGE

I fully agree that the word "controversy" should not be used, it was not me who added it. Concerning the 2019 Workd Championship, mentioning it only make sense if the article also mentions that Ashram dropped the apparatus, got deduction, and that Russians claim it is impossible to win by dropping the apparatus (which I believe the officials do not even claim since it is laughable). Currently the article does not do this, and mentioning of the 2019 Averina win is out of place.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:33, 12 August 2021 (UTC)