Talk:Helge Solum Larsen

Edits by Weavil-blues and protection: what to do

First of all, this article needs an admin to stick the full-protected template on it. The "expand from Norwegian" template should probably be removed at the same time; they kind of contradict each other '-) (And can some admin please change it to "on Larsen's part"? That missing apostrophe is making my eyes itch.

Weavil-blues has made 3 large edits to this article, each time stating that they were cleared with the family and a lawyer. In the first, they simply removed the section about the rape allegation. In the second, they replaced that section with a brief, unreferenced summary that the allegation was made and dismissed for lack of evidence, and also replaced referenced material on his political career with an unreferenced account including the value judgement that he was passionate. In the third the added material on his political career is similar and still unreferenced, but the referenced material is left preceding it, and the summary of the rape allegation is followed by the referenced account; changes have been made to that to remove mention of the psychiatric clinic and of arrest. A revert war then ensued, in which an IP editor reinstating Weavil-blues' version refers specifically to the psychiatric clinic and the arrest as inaccuracies. Mr. Vernon was the last to reinstate Weavil-blues' version. It was re-reverted before protection was applied, so we have the non-Weavil-blues' version right now. I am about to start seeing whether I can access the sources (I'm not in Norway so they may not want to show them all to me), and what they tell me. But as I see it there are at least 3 issues. (a) The easy one is how we cover his career: if we can find sources for any of the additional factual information in Weavil-blues' version, that additional info should be included, but I don't see it as desirable to include judgements like his having been passionate even if some source does say that. (b) Do we specify the psych clinic? This should be based on the sources, in my view, including if he was moved in or out of it. (c) Arrested or not, and how to treat the rape accusation as a whole: here I feel we need native speakers familiar with Norwegian law and legal procedures to get the fairest representation of the sources, and I agree this is a touchy BLP matter, despite his having died in the meantime. (For one thing, the rights of the accuser are involved; for another, his surviving family.) It was decided at AN/I that the mentions of a lawyer's advice didn't constitute a legal threat, but we still have to write this based on what the sources say.

Thoughts? Help? Yngvadottir (talk) 18:20, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

This source (Stavanger Aftenblad, we are using) says he is siktet and is in (a) psychiatric clinic. This source (NRK), referred to in the Stavanger Aftenblad source, says he is siktet and is in the hospital. I understand siktet to mean "under investigation". This source (TV2, we are using) does not say siktet - I believe it merely says accused - but does also say he's in the psych clinic. Our source for the dismissal of charges is Verdens Gang - we maybe should do better than that. I also see quite a lot of responses and so forth in our account. I'd like us to tighten it up, just stick with the facts. He was accused by a 17-year-old member of the party's youth wing, in association with a meeting of that youth wing, he was investigated, the prosecutor dropped the investigation. Same sources, but nothing about what the party spokesman said. However, I'm seeing "psych clinic" in reliable sources. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:42, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

The Bokmål Norwegian article isn't going to help a lot. It contains more info on his specific positions on road development and other issues of importance to local constituents, but the entire rape allegation section was removed in this edit; I believe the edit summary is calling it salacious. At a glance, I don't see any sources cited in that section that we don't already have. The Nynorsk version is shorter, and its bit about the accusation (one source) was removed by Weavil-blues in this edit. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:54, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir: I've asked JzG to consider removing the full protection. I spoke to someone on IRC who credibly represented the IP edits, and after discussion, I'm convinced they won't edit the article directly in the future. At the same time, there are some legitimate issues here. In particular, there's some puffery language about ("in tears"?), and some of the information isn't particularly well-sourced. I've been told (and this needs to be verified) that many sources here are of the tabloid variety. That seems credible to me as well; just look at the front page of this source regarding the psychiatric hospital stay (ref, front page). With such journalistic gems as "The parents were shocked baby came into world" (machine translated, of course), there's little doubt that tv2.no is a tabloid. Note that this article does fall under our WP:BLP policy given the severity of the allegations made against a subject deceased in the last year, so the sourcing here needs to be superb in such a negative section. There's also a solid issue of undue weight, as this noteworthy politician's article contains almost nothing in the way of his history as a politician. Ideally, we should translate some of the more-balanced Norwegian article to provide a bit more substance to the political history here. That's why I placed the translation tag. We will, of course, have to cover the rape allegations, but we need to do so properly. A thorough review of that section seems necessary. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:15, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, see my long disquisition above, laying out in particular where I really want to hear from experienced Norwegian editors. I think VG (Verdens Gang) is more of an issue than TV2, tho. Aftenbladet doesn't seem bad. A similar report in Aftenposten was the reference used on the Nynorsk Wikipedia. As to the balance: I'm not sure how much encyclopedicity there is in his position on roads; there's definitely very little in his being passionate; but as I say above somewhere in my verbiage, we're reporting way too much about people's reactions: the accusation and what happened after can probably be cut down to 3 sentences or so. (PS: Did you add the apostrophe? Must walk a dog). Yngvadottir (talk) 20:24, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Apostrophe added. And yes, I'm hoping we can get some Norwegian editors as well. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:30, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

• Reduced to semiprotection. Guy (Help!) 23:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to look over this. I reverted Weavil-blue's edits reflexively and went to ANI for self-evident reasons, and upon further reflection realized that I couldn't fairly assess complaints about content given the language barrier. Any headway that can be made is much appreciated, 2601:188:1:AEA0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 16:00, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

I've started working on the article. So far I have condensed the account of the accusation and investigation, removing the statements about people's reactions, and made it the final paragraph of the section on his political career. I've just added what he said, in a separate edit to facilitate undoing. I hope the psych thing can also be easily stripped out if it's determined it should be, but it was mentioned in two news reports. (I'll be removing one that we had mentioning it but that does not now seem to do so.) My next step is to wrestle with the no.wikipedia account of his positions as a politician. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:35, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

OK, I've added a condensation of the information on his activities as a politician from the Bokmål Wikipedia, and removed the "Expand from Norwegian" template. It's very under-referenced so I have templated it as such. I can and will hunt for news sources, but I'm wondering whether my pings at AN/I failed, so with apologies if they didn't, I'm going to re-ping the same experienced Norwegian editors I pinged there: Geschichte, Arsenikk, Iselilja. Please somebody check my work! Yngvadottir (talk) 17:36, 25 November 2016 (UTC)