Talk:List of Wikipedia controversies/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about List of Wikipedia controversies. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Issues

So many issues with this article, where do I even begin. Let's see, I guess i'll start from the simplest and go toward the more complicated.

1. There are several statements in the article that are not properly referenced and, since they are statements making an opinion about something on behalf of an outside group, they especially need to be referenced. I have tagged those with citation needed tags.

2. The references. Referencing another Wikipedia article, even if it is the About page, isn't really useful for anything. Nor is saying "See also" to another Wikipedia page in the references. Just include the relevant references that are used on those other pages. There are also several uses of primary sources, which in an article like this that is giving opinions, should really be avoided as much as possible. There are also sources of questionable reliability for this subject (Daily Mail) or of known non-neutrality for the subject (Violet Blue) that's being presented as a neutral source. Then there are the unreliable sources (Wikipedia Review).

3. In turn, these references of questionable reliability are being used to prop up non-neutral language. In fact, quite obviously POV language. The most explicitly obvious POV being in the line "Wikipedia administrator and community liaison Oliver Keyes wrote a blog post ridiculing Roth for his approach, but supplied no viable alternative", where the reference for this is the blog post itself, clearly showing that the writing is meant to be POV without any attached reference. There are a number of other such examples throughout the article.

4. In total, it adds up to an article that can be easily viewed as having been constructed to be POV from the get-go, using shoddy references and POV language to push the reader toward a certain viewpoint.

Though I do note that a lot of this language can be attributed to IP 174.141.213's edits. Silver seren^C 07:11, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I can only speak to your point number 2, since it complains about my use of a wikilinked article after the phrase "see also" in the references. This footnote falls under WP:EXPLNOTE. It's not supporting anything, it's merely explanatory. I would have used the {{further}} template, which I assume you would have had no problem with, but it seemed to overwhelm the single bullet point. Also, it seemed like overkill to list the referenced article in the see-alsos for the whole article, since it really only applies to that section. Do you have a better solution than this? It's certainly not an instance of a WP article cited to assert a fact. You only say it's "not useful." How so? It seems obviously useful to me.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:38, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and took it out of the footnotes since it was bothering you.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Your edits were perfectly fine, I just question the editing neutrality of others that have edited the article. As for the See also thing, I feel that we should try and keep inter-Wikipedia articles out of reference lists. It causes a self-referential issue. Even for information that is just explanatory, I feel it would just be best to include an actual reference and have the Wikipedia article link be included in the article text itself. Silver seren^C 15:53, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

See section below for another response. I definitely agree with you about that line about "definitive proof."— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:13, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Seren, can you be a bit more specific about which parts of this article are POV? Your complaints are a bit too vague (except for some of number 2).Volunteer Marek 23:16, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The article has been significantly expanded from what it was before. Giving it a cursory read, it looks like most of my concerns have already been fixed. I'll have to check through the references still, but it's looking good right now. Silver seren^C 22:24, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

WR found definitive proof...

I removed this:

Wikipedia Review found definitive proof that Jordan made false claims about his academic qualifications and professional experiences on his Wikipedia user page.^{[citation needed]}

since it doesn't seem to be sourceable and does seem to need a source. Thoughts?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:12, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Pretty much all Wikipedia Review info and references in the article should be removed, since the information doesn't appear to be corroborated by independent news sources. Silver seren^C 15:53, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

You might source something along those lines to the following passage from an independent news source: "Wikipedia's success has led to many sites focused on its foibles. One such site, the "Wikipedia Review", was the locus of much investigation into the "EssJay" scandal in which a highly ranked administrator falsified academic degrees and lied to the New Yorker", which appears in a column in The Guardian, "Inside, Wikipedia is more like a sweatshop than Santa's workshop". At this point I would normally engage in a little self-deprecating humor regarding the author of that column. But I've learned from past experience that such jokes are very dangerous to make on Wikipedia due to the peril of being taken out of context. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 12:37, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

POV

And with this edit, the IP has clearly revealed their non-neutral intent in wording. Please keep an eye out for any of their future edits to this article and revert them if they are of the same kind of non-neutral wording. Silver seren^C 15:59, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Do note that the IP's ISP (or they themselves) seems to be continually switching the last two digits of their number. So leaving talk page warnings is pretty much useless, as you'd be leaving them on a different one every time. I do note that they have been blocked before, fairly recently too. No idea how many other times they might have been because of the switching address. Silver seren^C 16:02, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

it is metropcs, which has dynamic (as fuck) IP's. there is no way of knowing which previous user of that IP made the edits that got that IP blocked. 174.141.213.27 (talk) 17:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

what was not neutral about those two edits? the word "copious"? please identify what was not neutral about the edits so that in the future i can avoid using whatever has upset you. 174.141.213.24 (talk) 17:18, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Notability template

I removed it in line with the template documentation, since I am "certain that enough in-depth, independent sources have been published about the subject to overcome any notability issues." Matters were not helped by the fact that the editor who added the template did not start a discussion about the issue here on the talk page. I hope that, in the future, editors templating this article will start sections here clarifying exactly what problems they think need to be addressed.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you'll be on safe ground if you deal only with issues that were dealt with by more than one RS. That's the definition of a controversy, imho. I think that this article is a good resource, but it bothers me that you have "controversies" consisting of one negative press clip. Coretheapple (talk) 04:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The definition of a controversy given by the OED is "Disputation on a matter of opinion; the contending of opponents one with another on a subject of dispute; discussion in which opposite views are advanced and maintained by opponents." In other words, there have to be at least two contending schools of thought. Many of the entries are not controversies. For example, the Seigenthaler incident was a hoax. Everyone seems to agree that it was a deliberate deception which should have been caught and corrected. So, where's the controversy? Genuine controversies tend not to be isolated incidents as, by their nature, they take some time to debate and resolve. For example, some educators support the use of Wikipedia and some oppose it. This is a complex matter which is taking time to work out. Incidents of scholarly use and abuse are material in that debate; they are not the actual controversy. Warden (talk) 07:22, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

It seems that the use of Controversy in this instance has precedence across 100s of other wikipedia articles. John lilburne (talk) 09:38, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Our article controversy starts by defining the concept: "Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view.". This seems to confirm my point. The examples which follow in your link likewise confirm the point. Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy is about free-speech vs Moslem taboo. Creation–evolution controversy is about the religious vs scientific views of the origin of species. The incidents presented here do not have this character; they just seem to be one-sided mud-slinging, contrary to WP:NPOV. Warden (talk) 11:15, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

And this is about what? And this is about what? All of it is about someone taking exception to some isolated thing that someone has said or done. Which is exactly what the list is doing, it is pointing to things that wikipedia has said or done. It is the instances where wikipedia is used by people either inside wikipedia or external to wikipedia have used wikipedia to advance a POV/COI, or where internal wikipedia policies have resulted in unforeseen consequences in the outside world. When fly-by vandalism can result in some national football team gets called Sand Monkeys in otherwise respected news sources, when someone gets labelled as an assassin, when people are credited with having done something they didn't do, and when false factoids get published externally as truths then that those are not isolated instances. That my friend is your prolonged dispute, that it is affects isolated individuals and isolated external articles does not mitigated the fact that the vandalism, POV/COI and the rest is a continuous pollution of the external world. John lilburne (talk) 13:38, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Your first example, Rape and pregnancy controversies in United States elections, 2012, is detritus from last year's electioneering, contrary to WP:SOAP. One can find plenty of junk like that in Wikipedia, hence WP:OSE, but when you start ranting about "continuous pollution" then you well demonstrate what's going on here. Warden (talk) 14:29, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

IOW it is wikipedia controversy. Is it not educational to provide authors and journalists a list of times when their fellow scribblers had been caught out by vandalism in WP articles? John lilburne (talk) 15:20, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not a controversy just because you want to make it one. Other organs such as The Guardian are notorious for their errors. Do we have a list of the errors made by that or other news media? As everyone makes errors, wouldn't compilations of them tend to be indiscriminate? And don't we all agree that errors are bad and best avoided? Still not seeing the controversy. Warden (talk) 16:15, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The Gruniad doesn't fills its pages with statements, presented as facts, that X is an assassin whilst simultaneously denying any responsibility for such statements. Comparing the unwittingly publishing of errors by those and having legal responsibility for such errors, with the deliberate insertions of falsehoods by those hiding behind immunity, is a rather controversial position to take, and one that most people would feel to be quite bizarre. John lilburne (talk) 18:12, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The Grauniad publishes plenty of misinformation such as the Maurice Jarre obituary. They corrected that, just as Wikipedia did, but not so quickly. But other newspapers routinely publish incorrect information and don't make or publish corrections. Please see Reign of error which indicates that the media makes thousands of errors but only correct them in a tiny proportion of cases. By singling out Wikipedia and making a meal of its errors, their significance is distorted, contrary to WP:UNDUE, and without a proper context such as the Nature survey, which found its accuracy to be comparable with Britannica's. This violates WP:SYN, WP:SOAP and WP:NPOV to make a blatant attack page. Warden (talk) 12:06, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Actual the Nature Survey showed no such thing. On a rough count they found that B was more accurate than WP: 123 errors versus 162. Then again in 2005 Jagged85 hadn't got into his stride. The real problem is that when one looks at a Britannica article one can be pretty sure that 5 seconds previously it wasn't screwed with. John lilburne (talk) 20:57, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

There does seem some definitional confusion, and a lot of lumping different kinds of things together. It would be more useful if it was split into related lists. One would be List of hoaxes on Wikipedia (which, oddly, is currently a cross-namespace redirect to Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia) - that's quite a few items here. Another would be something like "List of people who were reported in national media as editing Wikipedia for their own benefit" (or something in that direction) - that's quite a few items here. Clear those out, and the remaining items would be easier to evaluate, to maybe split the list further, or else provide a workable definition of "controversy" for the purposes of the list. Rd232 ^talk 11:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that what perhaps may be happening is that some of us are conflating a controversy within Wikipedia that gets outside coverage to genuine controversies that people outside Wikipedia would care about. BP is a good example of the latter. Most of this article is a list of the former, and really doesn't belong as an article anywhere in Wikipedia. Trust me, people outside Wikipedia don't give a damn about internal intrigue. You can distinguish easily the latter from the former by the number of media outlets that talk about it. Coretheapple (talk) 15:43, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

You also have things that aren't really Wiki controversies. For instance, the French intelligence pressuring an editor to remove an article. Was that even on the English Wikipedia? And if it was, how is that a controversy? There is a grab-bag of stuff like this, while genuine controversies get either short shrift or too much detail. Coretheapple (talk) 19:49, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The French Intelligence one should definitely be in the COI editing article, not here, since it's far more related to that. Silver seren^C 22:29, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Not sure it even belongs there, unless some French spy became an editor. Coretheapple (talk) 02:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Rd232. I would also note that the "List of people who were reported in national media as editing Wikipedia for their own benefit" is pretty much the COI editing on Wikipedia article, which covers much of the information that is in this article already. I do agree that this article should be split up, because many of these are not controversies. Silver seren^C 22:29, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Copying within Wikipedia

Please be mindful of the WP:Copying within Wikipedia guideline while building this article. If you copy and paste content, please include a link to the source article in your edit summary. If you have rewritten the text sufficiently, attribution is not required, but a link back may be useful to future editors.

User:Jayen466's edit summary of New article, with contents attributed to Wikipedia, Wikipedia biography controversy, Essjay controversy, and Scott Kildall. identifies the source articles of the initial creation.
User:AnomieBOT's fix of an orphaned ref led to me finding this insertion.
Many of the cite templates contain old accessdates, indicating that they were originally looked up and inserted before this article's creation. "Bare references" is the first item in WP:Copying within Wikipedia#Where attribution is not needed, so attribution is not required if the text around the refs was rewritten from scratch.

I placed a {{Copied multi}} to start. Flatscan (talk) 04:24, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest

There are obvious conflicts of interest from everyone in writing this article. For example, why is there not entry for this Foreign Policy article which is a more recent report and more scholarly than the Gibraltar coverage in the lead? Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

SOFIXIT John lilburne (talk) 11:49, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

When it's obvious that everyone writing this article has a conflict of interest? Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:00, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you admitting to a COI then? :) -edit- To be slightly less flippant, if being a Wikipedia editor makes one have a COI in writing an article on wikipedia controversies, then being British would make any British editor have a COI in writing articles on Britain. We dont extend COI to that level of paranoid. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:46, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Yup. Having an interest in a subject doesn't necessarily imply any particular conflict. For example, if members of the Antarctic vegetable grower's society edit articles about vegetables, there wouldn't necessarily be any conflict of interest. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 14:20, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

No. When the Antartic Growers write about the Antartic Growers, there is a conflict. (And Britain is not a reference work). Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:46, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

So Gardeners who live in England can't write about English gardens? --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 18:47, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

No. But gardeners who produce a reference work, have a conflict when they write about that reference work. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:33, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

What's my conflict of interest? Take some action on your accusation against me or STFU about it.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:19, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Some action? What are you talking about? The conflict of interest is patent -- whenever a written work or news organization writes about itself it has a conflict. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:00, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I absolutely agree, though I think you're making a category mistake or two: I'm not sure I'd want to describe WP as a written "work", much less describe Wikipedians as an "organization". Think about it... --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 18:47, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

It's a reference work in writing. It is produced and presented by editors (also called wikipedians) in an organized manner that is called Wikipedia. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:33, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:BOLD I've removed all items that are sourced to only one news article, or none in one case. I don't see how you can have a "controversy" when something is mentioned by only one reliable source. I think this may help rectify some of this article's issues. I may have missed a few. Coretheapple (talk) 17:36, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Wales and his lady friend

I am not a fan of Jimbo Wales, but I don't understand how a gossipy item on his breakup with his girlfriend deserves a mention in this article. What has this got to do with Wikipedia? It's a "Wales controversy." It belongs in the "List of Wales controversies" article. Coretheapple (talk) 03:43, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Completely agreed. Just a case of people trying to shame him wherever possible. But we already know that they're actually the sad and shameful ones with no lives. Silver seren^C 20:41, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps, but there's also a plagiarism case involving the editor of Wired, with only a tangential connection to Wikipedia. This article is such a grab-bag that I am wondering if perhaps deletion is not a bad idea after all, since it is a magnet for unrelated incidents that are not really Wiki controversies. I'm seeing very few here. Coretheapple (talk) 20:48, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Doran

I've removed the Caroline Doran incident, twice, because it had nothing to do with Wikipedia content, Wikipedia editing, or Wikipedia editors. It was a behind-the-scenes brouhaha that had 0 impact on any articles or other content, and did not affect anyone's editing. Another editor appears to strongly disagree.

It was in, I removed it, it was restored, I removed it again, it was restored again, so rather than breach 3RR, I'm raising the topic here on the talkpage. Given that the WMF is not Wikipedia (despite their inherent link), how does the Doran incident count as a "Wikipedia controversy" ? Please explain. DS (talk) 04:10, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The sources cited link it with Wikipedia. E.g. the first one says:

The revelation comes as the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the volunteer-written Wikipedia and its sister Web encyclopedias in other languages, is staging a fundraising drive and trying to expand beyond a ragtag startup.
"This is indicative of poor management of the Wikimedia Foundation," said Charles Ainsworth, a frequent Wikipedia contributor.
Ainsworth said he had been considering donating to support the encyclopedia, but won't "unless they clearly get things fixed."

Since the sources link it with Wikipedia I think we're safe in describing it as a Wikipedia controversy.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:30, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

These are the cited sources:

^ "Convicted Felon Ran Wikipedia Parent Company". Fox News/Associated Press. 21 December 2007. Retrieved 2013-04-19.

^ "Felon given senior Wikipedia role". The Sydney Morning Herald. 24 December 2007. Retrieved 2013-04-19.

^ Wikipedia COO was convicted felon Cade Metz, The Register, 13th December 2007

The lady was in charge of the financial management of the donations received by the Wikimedia Foundation, donations which come mainly through Wikipedia fundraisers. Andreas JN 466 04:33, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

But there was nothing pertaining to Wikipedia, just to the framework in which it exists. DS (talk) 04:57, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

In this case, the word "Wikipedia" is functioning as an attributive noun, which can be seen from the fact that a "Wikipedia controversy" is a controversy but it is not a Wikipedia. As the article linked to states:

In many languages, including English, it is possible for nouns to modify other nouns. Unlike adjectives, nouns acting as modifiers (called attributive nouns or noun adjuncts) are not predicative; a beautiful park is beautiful, but a car park is not "car". In plain English, the modifier often indicates origin ("Virginia reel"), purpose ("work clothes"), or semantic patient ("man eater"), however, it may generally indicate almost any semantic relationship.

In this case, the semantic relationship is that of being the framework in which it exists. This is a perfectly normal use of the word "Wikipedia" in English.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 05:18, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

This isn't about semantics, it's about what's helpful. I don't think it's helpful to mix up Wikimedia issues with Wikipedia ones, especially since this list is such a definitional mess anyway (see my remarks above about separating out hoaxes and COI issues). The Wikimedia issues can be handled elsewhere, with a See Also link. At the end of the day, this is quite a strange concept of an article (it's almost an alternative History of Wikipedia...), and for it to be any use beyond a dumping ground for Anything Bad To Do With Wikipedia, it needs to be shaped and pruned as much as possible, with things that can go elsewhere moved elsewhere. Rd232 ^talk 09:44, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that this isn't about semantics. What else would it be about? Here's the issue. We have an article called "List of Wikipedia controversies." There is a question about whether a given controversy X belongs on the list. This is fundamentally a question about whether the statement "X is a Wikipedia controversy" is true or not. Statements are generally either true for syntactic reasons or for semantic reasons. This one, not being a tautology, is not susceptible of being true for syntactic reasons. Thus it must stand or fall on semantics. So we want to know whether X is a Wikipedia controversy. Since no one seems to deny that it's a controversy, and we have three sources linking it with Wikipedia (there are more) and we have the phenomenon of the English attributive noun, in which a noun used as a modifier of another noun expresses a semantic relationship between the nouns, one can't even make the argument that the sources are applying the modifier "Wikipedia" incorrectly. As the one source says, she had a "Wikipedia role." That makes it a "Wikipedia controversy."— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 11:15, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

It's almost like you didn't read one single word of what I wrote. You're also engaging in a quite admirable level of sophistry to claim that sources' laziness about use of Wikimedia's major project to help get readers' attention justifies us conflating Wikimedia and Wikipedia. Honestly, if nowhere else can be found or built to put Wikimedia issues, then whatever, dump them here. But I don't see why nowhere else can be found or built, or why it wouldn't be better to do. Rd232 ^talk 20:36, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the vote of confidence in the level of my sophistry. I have ever believed, with Protagoras, that "Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not." I suppose that this leaves us, as encyclopedists, to decide for ourselves how to write this article rather than arguing about whether distinguishing between WP and the WMF constitutes a carving of nature at its joints. Thus I've taken the initiative to make the scope of the list more clear in the lead paragraph. As the sources will, no doubt, continue to conflate WP and WMF, along with our readers, editors, and mostly everyone else in the world, I think that this is an easier solution than trying to enforce an artificial distinction which no one will ever be able to keep straight anyway, even if it happens to, although I doubt that it does, possess a difference.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:23, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Ironholds describes his employment on his userpage (User:Okeyes (WMF)) as "Community Liaison, Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation", but on his personal Twitter he says "I work for Wikipedia. Law nerd, amateur coder, unrepentant Manguel apologist. Of all the inquisitive Hobbits, I am the worst." In the real world, the two terms seem to be used interchangeably. Good job on the article by the way, I learned a lot. :) Optimom (talk) 22:31, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Perennial controversies

Or maybe "structural controversies"? I'm collecting sources in the further reading section for a new section describing controversial uses of wikipedia which are themselves notable but which don't occur as discrete notable events. Some of these are:

Judicial citations to Wikipedia
Law review and scholarly citations to Wikipedia
Juror misconduct involving Wikipedia
Use of Wikipedia writing assignments in post-secondary education

If anyone has any ideas on how to structure a part of the article on these kinds of things chime in. Meanwhile I'm going to collect sources until I'm forced to make a decision.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 23:55, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that covered by Criticism of Wikipedia? Rd232 ^talk 20:09, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so, no. Can you be more specific?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:11, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

More specific? Well, specifically, the whole idea of "structural controversies" is the same as "criticism". Rd232 ^talk 21:18, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

That makes sense. Perhaps it's best to stick with "perennial controversies." I don't think that the issues I've listed are "criticisms" of Wikipedia, though. They're controversies about how Wikipedia's existence intersects with the real world in various ways. For instance, the debates in law reviews over whether it's reasonable for judges to cite Wikipedia in their decisions don't typically include criticisms of Wikipedia per se. They take Wikipedia as a given and either praise or criticise judges for their use of it. No single instance of a judicial citation seems to garner enough discussion to be described as a controversy, though. But taken together there is a great deal of controversy over the issue. Same with the other two I listed. That's my thinking on this.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:25, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Hm, fair enough, I guess there is a distinction there... though the only reason there's controversy about judges citing Wikipedia is because of the underlying reliability issues, so in a sense it's a dimension of that "controversy" (what an ugly and much-abused word). But again, an article about that specific issue would be more useful than just sticking a couple of examples in this list. Rd232 ^talk 18:35, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration sanctions

Please also note that this article comes under the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology and as such is subject to a specific set of arbitration sanctions. They're listed in the collapsed box at the top of this article, but for information, they are that editors of this article are required:

To edit on this article from only a single user account, which shall be the user's sole or main account, unless the user has previously sought and obtained permission from the Arbitration Committee to operate a legitimate second account;
To edit only through a conventional internet service provider and not through any form of proxy configuration;
To edit in accordance with all Wikipedia policies and to refrain from any form of advocacy concerning any external controversy, dispute, allegation, or proceeding; and
To disclose on the relevant talk pages any circumstances (but not including personal identifying information) that constitute or may reasonably be perceived as constituting a conflict of interest with respect to that page.

Any uninvolved administrator may of their own volition impose Discretionary sanctions on any editor who, after warning, fails to comply with the letter or spirit of these instructions. This was (authorized by the Arbitration Committee by motion on 1 June 2012. Prioryman (talk) 07:58, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Why is this under WikiProject Scientology? Ripberger (talk) 09:24, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not, except possibly just the section/text explicitly relevant to Scientology. Prioryman is just playing games.Volunteer Marek 12:36, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

The WikiProject Guide is very clear that "a WikiProject's members have the exclusive right to define the scope of their project". In addition, and this is bolded in the original for emphasis, "if a WikiProject says that an article is within their scope, then you may not force them to remove the banner." Likewise, again bolded in the original, "No editor may prohibit a group of editors from showing their interest in an article". This is unambiguous and long-standing practice. As a long-standing member of WikiProject Scientology - in fact, only the fourth person to join it - I will point out that this article covers a significant issue involving Scientology under List of Wikipedia controversies#2008. That pretty much automatically brings it into the scope of WikiProject Scientology - if that particular controversy hadn't been mentioned, I would have added it myself. For those who object, you don't have a leg to stand on as you're specifically forbidden from trying to exclude the article from the WikiProject's scope. The next person who tries to remove the WikiProject Scientology header from this talk page will get a one-way trip to arbitration enforcement. Prioryman (talk) 18:08, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

reverted again. No go and bitch about it somewhere. One editor does not make a WikiProject. John lilburne (talk) 19:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

A pity that Prioryman is going to continue to un-hat this and be WP:POINTY, but what can ya do? My advice? Just ignore it. The moment he or another tries to file for a Scientology-related sanction against an editor of this article, it will get laughed out of WP:AE. Pay this all no mind and move on to actual article discussions. Tarc (talk) 18:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah but you know there'll be attempts to Wiki lawyer the discretionary sanctions which are supposed to apply only to Scientology related topics into discretionary sanctions which apply to the article as a whole. As long as the project tag and the notice of discretionary sanctions apply only to the Scientology related parts of the article we're good.Volunteer Marek 18:47, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with everyone. The WikiProject banner is inviolate. Anyone can add them anywhere per the ~~policy~~ guideline Prioryman states. Does it mean the article falls under discretionary sanctions? I doubt it.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 18:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

It is not a policy, it is a guideline. Darkness Shines (talk) 19:44, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I fixed it. I still think it's a reasonable principle.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:51, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

You should strike the "inviolate" part as well, as whoever wrote that particular guideline ignored the policy of Wikipedia:Consensus Should a consensus of editors here or on any article decide a wikiproject has no place on an article, it can be removed. Darkness Shines (talk) 19:57, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

No, that's absolutely not the case, nor has it ever been. Do you really want to end up with a situation where WikiProjects fight with each other over having their banners on particular articles? Please see the FAQs at the top of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council, which are categorical on this point. Prioryman (talk) 20:00, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I'll strike that part. It's a statement of my opinion, which I hold for the reason Prioryman gives. If we force WikiProject banners to stand or fall on consensus it's going to be horrid. Think of Israel/Palestine, e.g. The WikiProject banners are practically the only thing they don't fight about right now.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:06, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

And once again, I have removed it. This article is not associated with Scientology just by a mere mention of a years-old Arbcom case. It is not and will not be subject to the discretionary sanctions imposed following that Arbcom case. This would be the epitome of a chilling effect. Tarc (talk) 20:09, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree about the chilling effect. I looked at the template code and that stupid sanctions thing is included in there. While I do think that WikiProjects have the right to have their banners wherever they want to, I don't see how the Scientology one is allowed to decree that sanctions apply just by declaring their project interested in a page. I considered making a new copy of the banner without the sanctions warning, but it's too much work.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:14, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. This is such a bizarre thing, I know in the Israeli-Palestine topic area that they have had similar sanctions imposed in the past, but I do not recall it being dependent on a project banner as this apparently is. Tarc (talk) 20:19, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

It's super-weird. I used to edit I/P articles (till crazy people drove me away), and if you want enforcement notices they absolutely must be added separately from the WikiProject things.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:24, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, this article is bound by the arbitration sanctions whether or not the template is on the talk page - they cover "any Scientology-related articles or discussions on any page". Prioryman (talk) 20:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

So what? It's the same with every article under sanctions. I still think it's weird that the huge warning comes with the banner, and I don't think that's appropriate. Would you consider, as a member of the project, making a version of your banner without the giant screaming sanctions thing, if you're going to put it on articles, like this one, which only tangentially mention scientology?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:31, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not up to me, I'm afraid. The "giant screaming sanctions thing" is there (1) because of an ArbCom decision and (2) appears to have been added by a WMF employee. That's way above my pay grade. Prioryman (talk) 20:34, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

This article is not bound by any Scientology-related restrictions, not just because it contains 2-3 lines about the Scientology Arbcom, that's just ridiculous. You cannot declare it to be under that umbrella on your own, by the mere act of tagging it with an until-now unheard of project+sanction-warning template. Try your luck at the Arb clarification board. Tarc (talk) 21:38, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

"Any Scientology-related articles or discussions on any page". If you don't like that scope, take it up with the Arbcom. Prioryman (talk) 22:15, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Not my problem, sport. I guess we'll find out what happens if and when you file an Scientology Arb Enforcement claim against someone editing this article in the future. Try not to make it as spurious as the one you filed against me, though. :) Tarc (talk) 22:29, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

(ec) "Any Scientology-related articles or discussions on any page". If you don't like that scope, take it up with the Arbcom.

Look, the common sense thing is that the discretionary sanctions and what not apply specifically to the part of the article which have to do with Scientology. If some edit war or agenda pushing breaks out with regard to that 1% of the article, then yeah, sure, you can bring it up on WP:AE. Whether there is actually a WikiProject:Scientology tag on the talk page or not (in other words, the tag/banner is not necessary). But WikiProject:Scientology, or the discretionary sanctions associated with it, does/do not apply to the other 99% of the article. Since Scientology is like 1% of this article, the project tag and the discretionary sanctions notice really don't belong here. And Tarc is right, their only purpose here appears to be to produce a chilling effect to dissuade editors from making contributions. And honestly, by your logic I could put a WikiProject:Pokemon banner on this page and no editor must remove it!!!. Because if someone puts it in, then it must not be removed. The idea is ridiculous. (Are there discretionary sanctions on Pokemon topics btw? If not there should be, and they should be applied liberally and haphazardly to anyone who even looks like they are considering editing that topic area).

If some wacky Scientologist starts causing problems in regard to that 1% of the article, I'll bring it to WP:AE myself, so chill.Volunteer Marek 22:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Prioryman, if you really think that the Scientology sanctions apply here, then wouldn't your statement at the AfD you filed, that "This list is the product of an off-wiki collaboration involving a number of users from Wikipediocracy, a fairly notorious anti-Wikipedia website" be in violation of the third requirement on the list, viz. "To edit in accordance with all Wikipedia policies and to refrain from any form of advocacy concerning any external controversy, dispute, allegation, or proceeding"? Just thinking... — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:38, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Not really; that's just a statement of fact. What I find interesting about this business, though, is that once again it shows how Wikipediocracy members behave like spoilt children who insist that they are special and unique snowflakes to whom the normal rules don't apply. Prioryman (talk) 22:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Que wha wha? Volunteer Marek 22:53, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, think about it? BLP? Wikipedians are evil if they don't abide by it, but it's fine for Wikipediocracy members to trash and libel individual people (hello, Carrite). Civility? It's terrible if Wikipedians aren't nice to each other all the time, but it's okay for Wikipediocracy members to be as abusive as they like towards Wikipedians. Sockpuppeting? Expose those sockpuppets if they're being operated by Wikipedians, but it's no big deal if you're a Wikipediocracy member, and by the way here's some tips on how to avoid checkuser! Paid editing? Dreadful if it's being done by Wikipedians, no problem if it's being done by Gregory Kohs and his pay-for-play outfit. The list goes on and on. And in this case, it's the ludicrous spectacle of Wikipediocracy members declaring that arbitration sanctions don't apply to them, when they're writing content that ArbCom has explicitly stated is covered by said sanctions. Prioryman (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

What part of "frivolous" in the interpretation of Sandstein about the filing at Arbitration Enforcement is unclear to you, Prioryman? This little pseudo-legalistic tap-dancing escapade does not become you. Carrite (talk) 00:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I have just one question for you Prioryman. Do you believe the ARBSCI discretionary sanctions only apply to the material in the article that concerns Scientology?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 16:07, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Whoever it was who hatted this discussion last time I looked at it had the right idea. Unless the creation of pointless drama and the proving of who is the best wikilawyer are the objectives here, I suggest everyone move on. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 01:10, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Moving forward

I still think it is rather dubious to apply the Arb restrictions to one passage of an article, but it seems that is the way yesterday's discussions trended. However, the Scientology Wikiproject tag is it is currently constructed is unacceptable. If something can be done to either change that template, or craft some sort of custom template/message that makes it clear that sanctions are only applicable to that one specific passage, then that'd be the way to proceed. Tarc (talk) 16:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with this completely. I think that it's important that WikiProjects be allowed to include whatever pages they'd like, because there are many legitimate circumstances where a Project wants to tag a page and other editors don't want the template on there. I/P has been mentioned, and I see this in WikiProject Discrimination all the time. On the other hand, the sanctions part would, as stated, have a chilling effect, and I don't think that the WikiProject has a right to have *that* template on this article. It seems to me that the best solution would be for the WikiProject to design a more normal template that will allow the assessment bot to do its necessary work but which doesn't have the sanctions in it, separate the sanctions into another template, and put that on problematic articles. This works in I/P, and if it works there it'll work anywhere. I don't think that qualifying the sanctions in the template is a good idea. It's too much for anyone to read through and I think they'll mostly just see the scary screaming warning and be inhibited from editing.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:32, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

If something ever goes to arbitration enforcement that is unrelated to scientology but about this article, I think it will be obvious that the article isn't covered by discretionary sanctions, except for the bit about Scientology. Just add a small blurb below the wikiproject template. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:09, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Somehow;

Warning, Arbcom sanctions are in effect for this article!
– Well, only for 0.05% of it.

strikes me as a bit Loony Tunes-ish, e.g.

The bridge ahead is perfectly safe.
– Except for coyotes.

Tarc (talk) 12:47, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking something along the lines of 'Some individual list items may be covered by Arbcom or community imposed sanctions.' Beyond that nothing is really needed. Feel free to put it in big font tho! :) Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:47, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

With apologies to the Road Runner Lyrics, I now have this doggerel running through my mind "Wiki Critic, the arbcom's after you. Wiki Critic, if AE catches you, you're through. ... Poor little Wiki Critic never bothers anyone. Just typin' on the page's his idea of having fun.". Anyway, regarding qualifiers, per comments above, there's nothing (I know of) that says they can't be in a font as large as the template. Or even a larger font. In fact, it could be argued that a larger font is appropriate, to make sure that the qualifier is noticed. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:11, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

It appears that Seth Finkelstein is in violation of an ex post facto law. The use of markup to increase the font size on talk pages is now criticized as a special form of shouting. In this case, unlike the case on Talk:Soviet Union that resulted in that addition to Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, it is humorously valid.

Undue Weight/Neutrality Flag

I am seeing no case presented here by the tagger, Prioryman detailing his objections that have caused him to tag this article for Neutrality/Undue Weight violations. Indeed, the tag seems to be specious, part of a campaign that has seen this user (a) Challenge the notability of the piece at AfD. (Snowed Close KEEP); (b) Appeal the merit of this ruling (Dismiss without relisting, NO CONSENSUS); (c) Launch an Arbitration Enforcement case against Tarc over applicability of assignment of this page to the Scientology workgroup (yes, bizarre as that sounds, he wants this to fall under the umbrella of the Scientology workgroup) (Ruled Unactionable); and (d) Disruptively placed multiple tags at the top of this piece, all but this one of which have already been removed as specious or discussed and removed as ill-considered.

Failing a coherent argument by him on why exactly an "Undue Weight/Neutrality" flag is applicable here and in light of this single individual's apparent POV warrior behavior against this piece, I submit that the this presumably bad faith tag should be immediately removed. Carrite (talk) 16:25, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I was going to write something to the same effect momentarily. There seems to me to be consensus to remove the template.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:32, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

American women writers

Sorry to put something up here that doesn't have anything to do with Scientology (as of today it doesn't, soon it no doubt will). I'm just collecting sources for an entry on the writers-by-sex category controversy here. There are clearly enough independent sources for an entry already, but I'd rather wait a few days to see what develops. However, these are the sources I have so far. If you want to write the entry yourself, go ahead of course. I'll get around to it otherwise.

Amanda Filipacchi (April 24, 2013). "Wikipedia's Sexism Toward Female Novelists". New York Times. - This is the opinion piece that started it all. Not to be used as a source, but must be mentioned as it kicked off the reporting.
Sarah Ditum (April 26, 2013). "Wikipedia wars: are there really novelists and 'women novelists'?". New Statesman.
Alison Flood (April 25, 2013). "Wikipedia bumps women from 'American novelists' category". The Guardian.
Jen Doll (April 25, 2013). "Wikipedia's Boys Club of 'American Novelists'". The Atlantic.
Deanna Zandt (April 26, 2013). "Yes, Wikipedia Is Sexist -- That's Why It Needs You". Forbes.
Kevin Rawlinson (April 26, 2013). "Wikipedia in sexism row after labelling Harper Lee and others 'women novelists' while men are 'American novelists'". The Independent.
Kevin Zara (April 25, 2013). "Wikipedia's Female Problem: Yes, There's A Sexist Slant, But Here's What You Can Do About It". International Business Times. - Has information on Postcolonial Digital Humanities Global Women Wikipedia Write-in.
"Wikipedia removed women from its 'American novelists' category". msnNOW. April 26, 2013.
Kristen Butler (April 25, 2013). "Wikipedia: Outrage after female authors removed from 'American novelists'". UPI.
Katie McDonough (April 25, 2013). ""American women novelists" segregated by Wikipedia". salon.com.

— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:45, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Don't forget Filipacchi's piece today in the Times Sunday Review section, which has an immense readership.[1] Her initial piece was online-only, according to the article today. Nice going, Wikipedia! Coretheapple (talk) 14:23, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Note: the Sunday piece went online yesterday, so it carries a date of April 27. But in adding a reference to this article I went with April 28, because that is the date of the Sunday edition in which it appears. Coretheapple (talk) 14:27, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

More:

Lynn Neary, What's In A Category? 'Women Novelists' Sparks Wiki-Controversy, NPR (with Ryan Kaldari interview)
Andrew Leonard, Wikipedia's shame, Salon (with Qworty quotes)
James Gleick, Wikipedia's Women Problem, The New York Review of Books (with John Pack Lambert and Obi-Wan Kenobi statement)
Amanda Filipacchi, Sexism on Wikipedia Is Not the Work of 'a Single Misguided Editor', Atlantic

The new piece by Filipacchi refers to and in part rebuts the pieces by Leonard and Gleick. Oh, and it's also made Cosmopolitan. Andreas JN 466 16:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedian of the Year

Just collecting sources for another entry while waiting to see how things develop. As always, feel free to write it or add to the list of sources.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:53, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Kevin Morris (April 26, 2013). "Winners of Wikipedia's biggest award still haven't received prize money". The Daily Dot.

I'm not sure this rises to the level of a "controversy." Carrite (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Yep, but if it does the source is here. All I was saying. 22:40, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Amanda Fillipachi pieces

It's very important that we accurately describe them. The first piece ran online on Wednesday, April 24. A second piece, with some common elements but largely different, focusing mainly on the reaction to the first, appeared in the Sunday Review section of the Times yesterday. I am a print subscriber and am fairly certain the Wednesday piece did not appear in the Times print edition, but I didn't hang on to the weekday papers so I can't swear to it. She describes it in her second article as running on the Times website, which is a pretty strong indication that it ran online only. However we do this, let's not diminish what happened by describing her second piece as a "print version." It was a separate piece. Coretheapple (talk) 19:35, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Okey dokey, artichokey! — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:39, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

And note there is now a third piece by her, linked above (in the Atlantic). Andreas JN 466 16:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Sue Gardner response: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/05/01/of-wikipedia-categories-and-sexism/ Andreas JN 466 17:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Any way to include that? Only seems fair. Coretheapple (talk) 17:51, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

COI editing

Noting [2] it is apparent that even banned users involved in these issues are editing, and I believe we could cite many other instances in which people with some link to the controversies detailed here have been editing. I think editors should try to have the same reserve when editing about controversies in which they have been directly and substantially involved as we would expect employees of a company to show when editing an article about it. I have placed the COI tag on the article in recognition of this. Wnt (talk) 20:57, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Please read the documentation for Template:COI and try to make a reasonable case for its being used here. The documentation for the template states explicitly: "Do not use this tag unless there are significant or substantial problems with the article's neutrality as a result of the contributor's involvement." If you have specific evidence that that's the case, state it. Otherwise leave the tag off. — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:10, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

This doesn't appear to be an appropriate use of the conflict-of-interest tag. COI editing isn't in itself forbidden, but involved users are cautioned to not let their involvement color their contributions, and that they should defer when challenged on any edit. I was rather vocal in my opposition to the deletion of the Virgin Killer image back in the day, but I don't think my input here would justify a COI tag, for example. Tarc (talk) 21:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Removal of Gregory Kohs material

Two reliable sources discuss the Kohs situation. That makes it notable. Thoughts? — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:06, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

An SEO spammer got banned from Wikipedia. Big deal. It happens every day. What makes Kohs any more significant than any of the rest? (Other than the fact that he is a habitual ban-evader, of course.) Prioryman (talk) 21:14, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Same thing that makes anybody significant for Wikipedia. There's an article in USA Today about the controversy and it's discussed in a book published by Yale University Press. He might in fact be a nobody, an SEO spammer, a habitual ban-evader, and an irritatingly rigid grammar-corrector for all I know or care, but he's in the sources so he goes in the article. — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:23, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I really don't see why this is a matter for discussion. If reliable sources support the material, then that should be sufficient. Tarc (talk) 21:33, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Apart from being not-notable, this article is also bound by WP:BLP1E. The material stays out. Russavia (talk) 21:39, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I am about as stringent of a 1E advocate as one can be on this project, having invoked it and argued vigourously for it on many many occasions. BLP1E is not applicable here, as this is a general list of controversies, not a biography of any person notable for only one event. If you have removed the material on that basis, I will be restoring it post-haste. Tarc (talk) 21:44, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand how that 1E policy applies. The Kohs stuff is one of the few true Wikipedia controversies in this article, and it was picked up by USA Today. If we must have an article like this, and I have my doubts, how can it be validly kept out? Coretheapple (talk) 21:49, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

BLP1E is not applicable here. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:02, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. This is not a biography so you cannot exclude something just because it only happened once. Mangoe (talk) 22:14, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

BLP is applicable on ALL articles. BLP1E applies here as per "Secondly, WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of low-profile individuals." Putting the two together means the Kohs stuff gets removed. Russavia (talk) 22:15, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

BLP1E is explicitly about criteria for having articles on a person. If your theory is correct, that it applies to all mentions of people, e.g. the owners of companies, then there's an awful lot of other problems you ought to be solving before you tackle this one. Maybe you could start by taking MyWikiBiz to AfD.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:21, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Read BLP1E again, in fact read the bit you pasted above "Secondly, WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of low-profile individuals" This is not a biography. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:47, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The MyWikiBiz controversy is clearly noteworthy here and BLP1E has nothing at all to do with mentioning the matter in a list of controversies.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:41, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I am never a fan of removing sourced information from an article. While I typically include inclusion of the data, including Kohs' name, I should note that usually in these debates I end up getting overruled by people who cite "Avoid victimization" under BLP and demand removal, not just of the name, but of the data. I should be happy to see the information included, noting with some bemusement the alterations in the usual order of battle. Wnt (talk) 02:47, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand how that kind of quasi-slander issue applies here. I do have a general issue with this article, as it seems to be a dumping ground for everything reflecting remotely on Wikipedia, to the extent that genuine controversies are submerged. It's obvious that Wikipedia does a poor job at writing about itself, along with a lot of other things it does poorly. Coretheapple (talk) 14:42, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia does a poor job of writing about itself because of conflict of interest, just as individuals and companies do a poor job of writing about themselves. In this case it cannot be resolved by reliance on third parties. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:15, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

That is correct. I've had doubts about this article for some time. Coretheapple (talk) 15:19, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

So we may expect to see the two of you taking every article in Category:Wikipedia and its subcats to AfD on COI grounds sometime soon? — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately COI does not appear to be grounds for deletion. In fact, it seems to be one of the weakest aspects of Wikipedia generally, a real Achilles Heel. Coretheapple (talk) 15:42, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

This article has a lot of useful information. The item just added by Alf on Timothy Messer-Kruse's struggle to add factual material is a good example. What I question is whether that kind of thing is really a "controversy." Coretheapple (talk) 17:22, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words! That sort of thing falls within the scope of the list, set forth in a paragraph cited to reliable sources by a number of scholars of information theory and so forth: "sociologist Howard Rheingold says that "Wikipedia controversies have revealed the evolution of social mechanisms in the Wikipedia community"; a study of the politicization of socio-technical spaces remarked that Wikipedia "controversies... become fully fledged when they are advertised outside the page being debated."— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 17:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The irony is that Messer-Kruse is just the sort of independent expert you want to have editing Wikipedia. Thanks for adding it. Coretheapple (talk) 17:58, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Jason Collins

Can we ax this section? Vandalism in itself isn't notable, and sorry to say but the fact that someone called someone else "fag" on the internet isn't all that notable either. I'm supportive of this article and the concept of a centralized place of a decade's worth of criticism and controversy, but I think we need to tighten the focus. Otherwise the truly had-to-do-with-Wikipedia-itself controversies (e.g. Filipacchi, Essjay, French intelligence), get diluted with things that just happened to happen on a Wikipedia page. Tarc (talk) 23:21, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Agree. Didn't someone take it out before (too lazy to check).— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 23:25, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Anita Sarkeesian

Regarding this revert: as I said in my original edit summary when removing this content, this is not a Wikipedia controversy. People vandalized Wikipedia, and maybe we might think it seems relevant to Wikipedia, but unless specific external sources discuss it as a problem with Wikipedia then it's not a "Wikipedia controversy"--just some other controversy that happened to take place partially on Wikipedia, but wasn't about Wikipedia. (See basically the same point about the Jason Collins entry above.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:49, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Re: [3]. I think the reason no one responded because simply how in the world is this NOT a Wikipedia controversy? The whole paragraph is well sourced and "specific external sources" DO discuss this as a problem with Wikipedia, for example [4] or [5] or [6], among others.

Basically your contention is so far out there that I think nobody took it seriously and hence didn't respond. Here is the response. Volunteer Marek 23:32, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

And note that this article is titled "List of Wikipedia controversies" not "List of controversies about Wikipedia" (though the later are an obvious subset of the former).Volunteer Marek 23:34, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

No, a "Wikipedia controversy" would be a controversy hinging over something that someone thinks is wrong with Wikipedia, a problem that people think Wikipedia causes, etc. The fact that a dispute happening somewhere else in the world just happened to also happen on Wikipedia doesn't necessarily make it a "Wikipedia controversy". This would be a Wikipedia controversy if, for example, the sources were saying that they thought Wikipedia made this kind of harassment easy or didn't respond sufficiently to this kind of harassment. None of the sources you've shown me do that. In fact, Sarkeesian's blog post (the first link you sent me) praises Wikipedians for taking care of the problem. Other than that, the sources you sent me don't say anything about Wikipedia other than that vandalism happened. The fact that some external sources mention the name "Wikipedia" (and that's about all they do) doesn't mean that this controversy was about Wikipedia. This is in no way a controversy about Wikipedia (which is what "Wikipedia controversy" means)--no more than it was a controversy about e-mail because she also received harassing e-mails. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:46, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I took out the picture because I thought it was totally gratuitous and gives the vandals a "one up" because their work is preserved in a prominent place to a wider audience. A picture of Sarkeesian herself would be better to illustrate the incident. The actual incident itself, though, definitely belongs here - this wasn't just common or garden vandalism - this was a pile-on. The fact the article has been indefinitely semi'd, a "privilege" generally reserved for the extremely famous, makes it controversial in itself. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:51, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

No valid reason for deletion that I can see. This is a woman who was harassed via vandalism her Wikipedia article, something that occurs more often than one would think. It just happens that this person was a bit proactive and got a screenshot of it before oversighting. The "controversy" is that a woman was slandered and slurred because of an opinion she has, and the "anyone-can-edit" encyclopedia was used as a platform from which to do this, as Wired magazine notes. Tarc (talk) 12:35, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd go even further than that - it was a full fronted co-ordinated attack - the internet equivalent of smashing a grass' windows and doors and painting "GRASS SCUM" on the side of their house. Or something like that. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:13, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

We actually have quite a few instances of vandalism being mentioned that had implications for living people beyond the meager annoyance of having the page vandalized in a crude fashion. I do feel the mere reporting of vandalism is a rather weak basis for an entry. Nothing I have read indicates the Wikipedia aspect of the harassment was put in any special context. Reports simply noted it as one of many things done online against Sarkeesian. The position that it points to a serious flaw in the "anyone can edit" ethos is apt but I don't see where this was reflected in any reliable source.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:47, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Tarc and Ritchie: please try to stay on topic. The fact that there was a lot of vandalism does not in any way address the points I raised above, nor does the fact that the article was semi-protected (indef semi-protection happens to a lot of articles, not just those about people; Gay has been semi-protected for 6 years). Regardless of how much vandalism there was, the fact remains that none of the sources you've provided focus particularly on how this is a controversy about Wikipedia.

Tarc, the Wired article absolutely does not note anything special about how "the 'anyone-can-edit' encyclopedia was used as a platform from which to do this", as you suggest. I just read it. All it says about Wikipedia is "The Wikipedia entry about her has been defaced as well" and "she speculates the attack on her Wikipedia page originated on 4chan". This is not in any way a controversy about Wikipedia.

Since we are clearly at an impasse here, I will open an RfC below. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:28, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Should the vandalism to Anita Sarkeesian be included in this list?

Consensus is to Oppose inclusion of Anita Sarkeesian article vandalism and harrassment in list per WP:BALASPS. Specifically, while the incident is certainly notable and well-sourced, and is appropriate for inclusion on the Sarkeesian article and Vandalism on Wikipedia, the involvement of Wikipedia in the incident is an ancillary component, and therefore inappropriate as an example of a Wikipedia controversy.

!votes Opposing: Rjanag (talk · contribs)The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs)NinjaRobotPirate (talk · contribs)Yogesh Khandke (talk · contribs)My very best wishes (talk · contribs)

!votes Supporting: Stanistani (talk · contribs)Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs)Tarc (talk · contribs)Optimom (talk · contribs)Obiwankenobi (talk · contribs)

other comments: Ritchie333 (talk · contribs)

Non-admin close per request at WP:ANRFC by Van Isaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 07:23, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The article Anita Sarkeesian was subjected to vandalism which was mentioned in the news. That incident has an entry in this list (see here). Should this be included as a Wikipedia controversy? rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:34, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Survey

Oppose See my rationale in the thread above (particularly this message) and below. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:34, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
Oppose I have looked for any mention of this in a reliable source that goes beyond "her Wikipedia page was also vandalized" and have come up empty. The vandalism was not put in any significant context by any of the sources. Her page being subject to vandalism was simply one of many things they mention as part of the online harassment. Coverage seems too tangential to justify mentioning it as a Wikipedia controversy.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:21, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Not fussed I'll go with whatever the majority is. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 09:55, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Support the vandalism occured on Wikipedia, it was controversial, and belongs on the list.→Stani Stani 18:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
- Vandalism occurs on lots of Wikipedia pages, and they're not all on the list. So there must be something more than just having vandalism that makes this relevant. What was "controversial" about the Wikipedia vandalism in this case? Are there actually people who don't agree that it was reprehensible? I don't see anything controversial about the Wikipedia aspect here (there are controversies in other aspects of it, like her arguments about women's representation in the media, which some people disagree with for whatever reason). rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:02, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Support. First, this wasn't just vandalism, but vandalism AND harassment. That's an important distinction since most Wikipedia vandalisms are just stupidities and larks, but not intended to actually hurt any living person. Second, run of the mill Wikipedia vandalism does not get coverage in reliable sources. Long running hoaxes, vandalism of political bios and similar do. So did this. Look, often times when a Wikipedia hoax gets reported in the media, there's no discussion of "this is a Wikipedia controversy" or "this is what's wrong with Wikipedia". Usually a source just reports that it happened. Same thing here.Volunteer Marek 19:37, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
- I don't see how the fact that this was vandalism plus harassment makes this incident any more relevant to the list (this isn't a "list of Wikipedia harassments"); the points Devil's Advocate and I raised still apply. But it looks like you agree that reliable sources don't describe this as a Wikipedia controversy, and that reliable sources just give passing mention saying that it happened. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:10, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Because the fact that it was harassment is what makes it relevant to the subject of this article. And this isn't an AfD for an article "Anita Sarkeesian Wikipedia Controversy". If it was, then this "only passing mention" argument might be relevant. But it's not. What you are agreeing with is that there are reliable sources to support the claims made in the text.Volunteer Marek 20:49, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Most entries have sources connecting the controversy in some significant way to Wikipedia. Simply saying vandalism occurred as part of some broader action is not very significant. Wikipedia didn't cause the controversy, nor was it a subject of the controversy. It was just one of many places that was touched by the controversy.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Oppose. Although the controversy seems to be notable, none of the sources that I found were discussing the matter in a way that would fit the scope of this article. If someone can find a source that uses this case as an example of rampant misogyny or trolling on Wikipedia, then I could see it being included. Merely listing the fact that her article was vandalized does not warrant inclusion. Actual criticism of Wikipedia itself must be present. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 20:24, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Support - Vandalism and sexist harassment, using a person's Wikipedia article as the medium. Open and shut case. Tarc (talk) 23:16, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Support. Although it seems par for the course on Wikipedia, the fact that Wikipedia was used as a tool to harass this woman is mentioned in several sources. Optimom (talk) 01:05, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
- No one is disputing that Wikipedia is mentioned in sources. But that's not the same as saying that this is a controversy about Wikipedia, no more than a regular murder is a controversy about guns (or whatever other thing). See discussion above and below. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:40, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
  - Well a murder with a gun might belong in a [[List of murders committed with a gun]]. In addition, I see parallels with the Siegenthaler incident, where Wikipedia was used to libel an article subject, and it made the news. Perhaps Sarkeesian's harassment on Wikipedia merits a Wikipedia article also? It, too, is listed in several reliable sources. Optimom (talk) 03:07, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
    - But as I have already said, this article does not claim to be a "List of instances of vandalism on Wikipedia" or "List of times Wikipedia was mentioned in the news". It claims to be a list of controversies about Wikipedia. This incident has not been covered in reliable sources as a controversy about Wikipedia. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:00, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Lol, no, the harassment campaign against her as a whole is not notable enough for an article, let alone some Wikipedia-specific aspect of it. It is covered in her bio well enough.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:39, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

support Per Optimom.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:24, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmm... there is Vandalism_on_Wikipedia which has notable vandalism incidents. Do we need a split here? e.g. notable vandalism, mentioned in the news, and then notable (something else about wikipedia), mentioned in the news? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:11, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

That would make more sense than the current setup. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:48, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable solution to me to add it to that list of vandalism incidents. It doesn't belong here as there are no sources talking about it as a Wikipedia controversy. We might be able to come up with all sorts of arguments for how it is a significant controversy, but if no reliable sources recognize the vandalism as significant in its own right, rather than merely being part of some wider harassment, then we should not inflate its significance.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:39, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Oppose: Per Rjanag. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 23:20, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Oppose per WP:DUE. This is notable enough to be included in article about Anita Sarkisyan, but not notable enough to be included in the list of Wikipedia controversies. My very best wishes (talk) 16:23, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

As I explained in the thread above (particularly this message), this is not a controversy about Wikipedia; none of the news coverage focuses on how this incident reveals a problem with Wikipedia, how Wikipedia made this happen, etc. Merely mentioning that vandalism happened on Wikipedia does not amount to a "controversy". rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:34, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sarkeesian: post-RfC comment

I have moved the Sarkeesian section to Vandalism of Wikipedia, as a couple of editors suggested above, but to be frank, I do not really see a consensus to remove it from this article. I see 5 for, 5 against, and 1 neutral, which seeems to me the very definition of No consensus (which usually defaults to Keep). For what it's worth, my vote would have been Keep. Andreas JN 466 02:38, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Consensus is not simply based on a number of votes; see WP:VOTE. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:05, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Look mate: I didn't arrive here yesterday. You and I collaborated on an FA more than three years ago. What it says on the page you link to (which doesn't actually mention RfCs) is, "It is important to remember that polls do not in themselves create consensus; rather, they are one tool useful for developing mutual consensus and evaluating whether consensus exists. [...] If a straw poll is inconclusive, or if there is significant disagreement about whether the question itself was fair, then no consensus results from the poll." To declare a "consensus" when there isn't one, as in this case, is nothing but a supervote, and you know it. Cheers, Andreas JN 466 02:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

My point was, the number of votes for or against doesn't prove that there was no consensus. I think there is some deep disagreement over what the scope of this article should even be, because if you read through the discussion there are several votes (on both sides) that are off-topic. For example, every comment that mentioned notability--there were both people saying the incident should be kept because it's notable, and people saying it should be removed because it's not notable enough, but this was never a discussion about whether or not it was notable (it was a discussion about whether it was an example of a controversy about Wikipedia, as opposed to just an example of some time the word Wikipedia was in the news). rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:35, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Alleged "outing"

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, decide to waive Wikipedia's strict "outing" policy when he asked other editors to post their suspicions about Edward Snowden's activities on Wikipedia to Wales' talk page.

Sources do not indicate Wales had decided to "waive" any policies; in fact, he was quoted as:

"I do not seek, and have not sought, any exception of any kind, not at any point"[7]

which seems to indicate precisely the opposite. Hopefully this is a net improvement, though. GregorB (talk) 21:30, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Rand Paul

The Rand Paul affair of October 2013 is not really a Wikipedia controversy. GregorB (talk) 08:29, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Chelsea Manning?

Sure the controversy over the Chelsea Manning article needs to be here - the move to Bradley Manning and back again, as well as the aftermath with editors receiving topic bans.[8][9] St Anselm (talk) 20:15, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

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In the section labeled 2002, can someone please replace the text ("fork") with the wikitext [[Fork (software development)|fork]], as this term ought to be wikilinked. — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:57, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

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In the section labeled 2002, can someone please replace the current sentence reading "Most of the Spanish volunteers followed Enyedy and produced over 10,000 articles within less than a year, leaving the Spanish Wikipedia virtually inactive until mid-2003." with two sentences reading "Most of the Spanish volunteers followed Enyedy. They produced over 10,000 articles within less than a year, leaving the Spanish Wikipedia virtually inactive until mid-2003." This is more direct, more clear, and less awkward. — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:59, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Question: Wouldn't the wording Most of the Spanish volunteers followed Enyedy producing over 10,000 articles within a year. be clearer? The other part, could be worded as a second sentence This production left the Spanish Wikipedia virtually inactive until mid-2003., but it doesn't seem to make sense in the context of this request. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:21, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Your suggestion is better than mine, except it needs a comma. The way to make it work is to change the second sentence slightly: "Most of the Spanish volunteers followed Enyedy, producing over 10,000 articles within a year. As a result the Spanish Wikipedia was virtually inactive until mid-2003." Note the added comma in the first sentence. Nice work!— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:45, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

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In the section labeled 2002, can someone please replace the sentence "The question of advertising has ever since been a sensitive subject on Wikipedia." with the sentence "Since this incident the question of advertising has been a sensitive subject on Wikipedia." The current version reads like a machine translation of a Spanish fairy tale. — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:02, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Note: Proper grammar for the suggested replacement would be Since this incident, the question of advertising has been a sensitive subject on Wikipedia. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:28, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't think punctuation is generally a matter of grammar but YMMV. In any case there's no need for a comma there. Why do you think there is?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:47, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Alf is correct about the comma not being required by grammar, and on the larger point, that grammar has precious little to say about punctuation. Drmies (talk) 18:22, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

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In the clause "In an interview with Wired in January 2011, Wales categorically denied supporting the plans for advertising," in the 2002 section, can someone please correct the verb tense to "having supported" and also clarify the noun phrase. The clause should read "In an interview with Wired in January 2011, Wales categorically denied having supported the plan to sell advertising on the site," — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:06, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

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In the section labeled 2002, can someone please correct the verb tense was refusing to deny to the more concise refused to deny? I realize that whoever wrote this wanted the past imperfect, but that's implied by the context and in English, unlike the Spanish whose syntax this section seems to have an affinity with, if the context will show the imperfection of the verb it's better to do it that way. — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:10, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Good point. Drmies (talk) 18:23, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

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In the section labeled 2004, please change "his other introduced errors" to "the other errors he introduced." In such a long sentence, and after a dependent clause, the use of "introduced" as a determiner, while certainly grammatical, is quite jarring. It's more clear to put the noun forward in the phrase. — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:14, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Y'know, a cynical person might look at this series of protected edit requests, note that they are for rather trivial matters of wiki-linking, grammar, & the like, and would assume bad faith about the pointy motivations of said requests, that perhaps a point is being made about the current protection level. Tarc (talk) 18:49, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

This is possible. But my glass is, by Jimmy's mandate, permanently half-full. Drmies (talk) 19:36, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Tarc, I am glad you're not a cynic. Protected edit requests are, by definition, for rather trivial matters. The edit screen on the template mandates that. Furthermore, Wikipedia is always improving. Small edits are as important as large ones. Wikignomes are as important as content creators. These edit requests are for normal, non-controversial edits of the sort I have been making to this page for over a year. Although I am now prevented from doing so, there is no reason why the continual, incremental improvement of the article should stop.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:29, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Alf, stop spamming the talk page with trivial grammar corrections

Seriously this is lame lame lame.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:02, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Careful lest they ask you to repunctuate that sentence, Obi. Drmies (talk) 20:14, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Obiwan, edit requests are only to be made for non-controversial edits. That is what the template is for. Why do they have the template if not to request that trivial edits be made? Controversial edits must be hashed out on the talk page first, as you well know. Furthermore, few to none of my requests had to do with grammar. Finally, why did you put this nonsense on the article talk page when it has nothing to do with discussing the article content?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:25, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

whatever Alf you're not fooling me. Just drop it, and wait till the protection expires to pursue these edits.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:20, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Don't boss me about, Jedi. Read the explanation for when such requests are to be made for your own self: [10]. My requests were precisely in line with it. As will be any further such requests I make. Since no one seems to be interested in using page protection for its intended purpose, which is to allow editors to converse to reach consensus, we might as well take the time to do some copyediting. You notice how the discussion about the controversial material has ground to a halt, with reasonable objections unanswered by those whose preferred version of the page was protected? Those editors, who continue to block discussion, are the ones you ought to chastise if, in fact, you ought to chastise anyone. Oh, and of course, I know I'm not fooling you. Your Jedi powers include the mind-meld or whatever, do they not?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:49, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

alf, the page has been unprotected for a very long time, and I haven't seen many grammatical edits from you in a long time. And then, for a dispute you are deeply involved in, the page gets protected, and all of a sudden you drop into copy edit mode with 6 edits that are trivial in nature? I don't care what the templates are technically for, I can smell a WP:POINT when I see it using my mind powers, and also just by looking at the blatant evidence on the page of 6 separate requests that are trivial in nature from one involved editor that could easily wait. I suggest you engage on a discussion instead on the inclusion criteria for this list, which only states 'notable incidents' - that clearly needs more definition. Otherwise your POINT has been made, move on.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:41, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Obiwan, as you know very well, one might not think of an article for a long time and then when it pops up on the old watchlist, one notices a bunch of copyediting that needs to be done. Should that process be halted because of a toys-out-of-pram incident? It should not. This is a normal cycle. Controversy leads to copyediting. Also, why don't you stop telling me to move on when, obviously, your mind powers should be telling you that I already have? And you have an awful lot of nerve telling me that I engage in a discussion on the inclusion criteria when I've been trying to do just that, but the intransigent crew that got their version protected has gone silent. My lawyer has told me on a number of occasions that I shouldn't negotiate with myself. I'm following that advice here. If you weren't so dead set on chastising me you'd notice that in the discussion above, all the last substantive comments, left unanswered, were made by me. Why aren't you yourself engaging in that conversation instead of abusing this talk page to try to smack me around into conformity with your undelineated standards of....?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:02, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Alf, the number of trivial grammar changes you requested was pretty much ridiculous. During content disputes, it's typical to put minor grammar corrections aside until the protection ends, and not spend half the talk page spamming them to make a WP:POINT. Please collapse all your requests in to one section so they don't take up half the table of contents. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:37, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Typical according to whom? Link to a guideline or an essay or else stop making stuff up. Just because decent writing (not grammar, none or few were grammar-related) means nothing to you doesn't mean it's not important. It's as important as content.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:26, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Kevin Gorman, you ought to read the page history

MONGO doesn't seem to care, nor do the rest of us

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Note that MONGO, who opposes including the content, split the choices here, with an edit summary stating that he wanted a third choice. I did not split the choices, as you assumed. I pointed out subsequently that in this context "any" and "some" are logically equivalent, but he wanted to keep it that way. I would think you would respect that editor's choice of choices, but evidently not. I suppose he'll come around and say whether he thinks your heavy-handed edit is OK with him. It strikes me as an egregious violation of WP:TPO, as MONGO evidently felt that there was a significant difference, which you've now elided, and it might be that you have made an "edit or [a] move [of] someone's comment to change its meaning." Perhaps you should put it back how it was.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:17, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

If he wants to keep it that way, he's more than welcome to come comment here or restore it if he feels terribly strongly about it. Given that every current oppose vote is opposing keeping any content related to Kohs in the page at the present time, there's no purpose in arbitrarily splitting the no votes in to two different sections - it just makes the RfC harder to interpret. Looking at the page history, I suspect Mongo will agree with my move, since I retained his section heading, and not yours. "Any" and "some" are not equivalent in this context, and point to another issue with a heavily opinionated editor creating an "informal RfC" so that they didn't feel the need to write a clear, neutral request for comment. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:53, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Logic 101, Kevin, although I seem to recall that at Cal the lower division courses are two digits. In any case, let P="Include some Kohs material." Then ~P="Do not include some Kohs material." This means the same thing as "do not include any Kohs material" in context. Since both sentences are the negation of P they're equivalent. In any case, you're evading the issue, which is that (a) you accused me of doing something that MONGO did and (b) since MONGO saw a distinction, your refactoring of the sections changed the meaning as MONGO expressly saw it. In either case, if you actually believe that the statements aren't equivalent, you must admit that your refactoring changed the meaning of someone's comments.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:27, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I believe my refactoring changed the meaning of someone's comments; I think they changed the way you originally (inappropriately) phrased the RfC positions. Your options may have looked clear and neutral to you; they clearly didn't look clear and neutral to Mongo, and I don't think they looked clear/neutral, either. When you need to parse what your statements mean in the way you just did in order to defend them, it's a good sign that your statements lack adequate clarity. If you object to the way I changed your original heading, I'm more than up for talking about reverting it, but if you do end up insisting on reverting it, I'm probably going to ask for this silly "informal RfC where I don't have to write a neutral summary of what's going on" thing to stop as well. RfC is not a 30 day bound process to begin with, goes as far as to describe itself as informal at WP:RFC, and the thing that you've launched here misses one of the biggest benefits of an actual RfC: recruiting a large body of uninvolved editors. I frankly have no good faith clue why you chose to not just launch a real RfC. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Your point being that because you didn't understand what I wrote it was written unclearly? That's an interesting argument.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:29, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Alf: when multiple people find your wording inadequate, you might want to step back for a moment and consider how you could avoid that problem in the future instead of insulting the people who find your wording inadequate. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:37, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Kevin Gorman, when multiple people consider that you are editing in an extremely unconstructive manner you might want to step back for a moment and consider not providing a performative demonstration of the validity of their concerns.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:26, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I find it.. kind of amazing that you consistently respond to my comments that are either to the tune of "you might want to be civil while there's an open ANI section about your civility" or "RfC's should be clear, and if multiple people find them unclear, something isn't optimal," with uncivil comments. And for the record, that's nothing approaching a threat, it's just... confusion. Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:23, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I suppose I did think the some wording was weak as far as my stance....but not going to get in the middle of this trivial wording issue. If anyone thinks there is an ambiguity they might wish to inform the earlier voters(!) and let them know that the term some was dropped since they voiced their opinion.--MONGO 02:26, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

|}

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Forget about it

I'll admit that I have been absolutely amazed and confused at some of the things people have said and done in this debate. I got me to wondering: What am I missing? I looked through everything that has been said thus far, and about halfway through the first unbearably silly thread it occurred to me: Of course! the big picture! I don't care about getting this controversy on this list enough to waste any more of my time on it, let alone everyone else's. So let's just walk away from it. It wasn't there before I added it, and it won't be there after we all get back to doing something worthwhile. There are definitely debates worth having. This just isn't one of them. ,Wil (talk) 12:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

"We didn't start the fire,It was always burning, Since the world's been turning. We didn't start the fire,No we didn't light it, But we tried to fight it." One of the things you'll learn here is that consensus is often unpredictable, and seemingly simple changes can engender months of discussion. Also, while the initial creator 'withdrawing' their support for material has meaning, it doesn't hold much more weight than everyone else once others have weighed in. Once you start something, Wikipedia finishes it, either to your liking or not but it's out of your control...-Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:34, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Finish it without me then. I'm moving on to more important stuff. ,Wil (talk) 16:44, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Its an epiphany! Hallelujah!--MONGO 15:53, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria, redux

It seems much of the controversy (ha!) here stems from differing understandings of the inclusion criteria for this list - is it *all* things that happen in the wikipedia universe, broadly defined, that are have a hint of controversy - or is there a limit?

Thus, I think a good step would be to work on a consensus inclusion criteria for this list more generally. For now, we have these lines, roughly: "The media has covered a number of controversial events related to Wikipedia and its parent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF)... Controversies within and concerning Wikipedia and the WMF have been the subject of several scholarly papers. This list is a collection of the more notable instances."

At issue is, what makes an incident notable?

A wise man once said: "All incidents are notable, but some incidents more notable than others."

Normally, notability in wikipedia means something that passes GNG, or something that we would otherwise have an article about, or about which an article could be written. The canonical example is Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident, which has dozens of sources behind it.

Now, I personally think that a blue-link shouldn't be a requirement for inclusion here, as there will be incidents - or events in the parlance of the notability guideline - which pass GNG, but which don't necessarily have a WP:LASTING impact, and thus are more considered run-of-the mill news stories that happen to involve wikipedia. That said, I think we should go slightly beyond the bare minimum of GNG.

Thus, I propose that the inclusion criteria for list items here be changed to the following. If you have proposed minor edits, make them below, if you have a different criteria, please create a new section.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:37, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

inclusion criteria draft

This page is for incidents which fulfill the following criteria:

Either Wikipedia itself (content or editors), or the Wikimedia Foundation, is a central actor in the controversy

Thus, controversial activities of Wikipedia people unrelated to Wikipedia should not be placed here.

The controversy in covered in multiple reliable sources, independent of the participants, and the sourcing passes WP:GNG.
The sources cover the controversy in detail, and not only in passing
The sources make clear, through the language used to describe the event, that this was actually a controversy of some sort, and not simply, for example, a research study or a discovery of an error in Wikipedia. For example, a study about Wikipedia that demonstrated that Wikipedia articles are of poor quality or that 90% of editors are male is not a controversy. A controversy in this case would arise if such a study came out, and then several prominent academics responded to contest the findings of the study, and other articles were written about the controversy around the findings of said study, or if there was a public debate about what to DO about the findings of the study. Otherwise, such studies of Wikipedia quality can go to Reliability_of_Wikipedia for example, and notable hoaxes can go to Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia, and notable criticisms of Wikipedia should be placed in Criticism_of_Wikipedia.

Discussion

Note: Wikipedia's description of controversy is "Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view." - which is what we should apply here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:37, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for drafting these, Obi. I support them, and believe that they reflect reasonably well the previously used de facto inclusion criteria as already somewhat presented in the article - "This list is a collection of the more notable instances." etc. Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:48, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
As an example of the sort of stuff I'd want excluded is things like this: [11]. This was solved within hours, and there was no "controversy" - at least as far as I can tell. We need to carefully avoid the horrible navel-gazing nature of this list and really focus on things which are serious controversies, not news-filling, wikipedia-entry-incorrect-o-the-day type stuff.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:51, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I think that's something that should absolutely fairly be excluded, unless it got a massive amount of coverage, because fake wikipedia death stories are a dime a dozen. I'd also note, interestingly, that that incident got at least one entire RS dedicated to it, as opposed to what we're discussing above.... Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:11, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

That incident got several sources for it, but again, where was the controversy? I didn't see it. It was just "someone found an error in wikipedia, and someone else corrected it, and the guy happened to be well known". There was nothing "controversial" about it.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:13, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Point taken, and agreed with. There's definitely a big difference between something like Jim Davis or any of the thousands of other stories like his, and something like John Seigenthaler.Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Obi-wan. I second Kevin's support, and believe that this controversy meets all of those criteria. ,Wil (talk) 05:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Wllm: - it actually fails more than one of them currently... but the thing is, it might pass all of them a couple weeks from now, which is why it's a bit silly to be having a conversation this long now. One of the requirements Obi posited was that any controversy must be covered in multiple reliable sources; another was that it had to be covered in more than passing. Currently this has only been covered in one thing we'd really consider a reliable source - NYMag - and it was covered in passing in that (as it only received a sentence.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

You know what this is starting to reminding me of? Remember that braindead card game “War” that we used to play as kids? Remember how if you put down cards of equal value you have a “war,” where you’d lay down 3 cards and compare the 4th pair? And remember how if the cards were of equal value, you’d have a sub-“war”? And sometimes this went on for a few different “wars” until someone finally won? Well, this is just as braindead. ,Wil (talk) 08:07, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
This proposal is something completely different from what was initially added. I should know: I added it! Are we really going to go all the way down this path, potentially adding a note to some only superficially related item, only to have this whole thing start from scratch because we didn't actually address the issue we started with in the first place? For reals?!? ,Wil (talk) 08:07, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

consensus is a strange bird. I've learned that, even if it's not explicitly written, consensus is sometimes compromise. This means that side A doesn't get all they want and side B doesn't get all they want either. Ppl can be opinionated so sometimes very creative out of the box solutions need to be developed, which the above seems to attempt at doing. If someone were to close the discussion on the first entry you proposed the finding would likely be 'no consensus', which means by default we don't include the material. Kevin said this isn't typical, but it is, for anything where there is strong disagreement, as noted before, this is actually rather minor compared to debates we can have here. You ask if there's not a better way - ok fine - what do you suggest? But don't do it here, maybe at village pump policy or something. The way things work has evolved over 10 years. The essential problem is that ultimately there is no final arbiter of content, no supreme editorial board we can call upon. So instead we have to argue it out.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 10:52, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that the concrete suggestion on the table is fair to all, in that everyone equally doesn't want it to happen. ,Wil (talk) 11:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Hard cases make bad law, Obiwan. I don't think it's possible to discuss inclusion criteria at this moment in time without everyone on both sides of the ongoing content dispute reading their positions on that into their positions on your proposal. I'm thinking it'd be better to wait to discuss general inclusion criteria until after we decide what to do in this concrete case, so that our general inclusion criteria are not infected by angling for advantages. I'm not suggesting that that's your intention, and I know you typically want to move concrete content disputes to ever more abstract problems which you want to settle before dealing with the issues on the table (not a criticism, just something I've noticed about your editing style). However, I don't see a desperate need for a general formulation of inclusion criteria. The article has developed fairly nicely without them for over a year, so what's the harm in waiting. Also, I don't see that this is a good time to formulate them, desperately needed or not. So, while I appreciate your effort and I see much good in your proposal, I won't be participating in this particular aspect of the discussion.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Alf, your consistent refusal to discuss inclusion criteria would be amusing if it wasn't so freaking tendentious. Obi was the first person to explicitly formulate a set of criteria, but I've brought up the scope of the list at least three or four times before in posts you didn't bother to answer. It's absolutely appropriate to discuss general inclusion criteria now. You decide if something belongs on a list and then decide what the list is going to be about. You decide what the list is going to be about and then decide if something belongs on it. As I previously mentioned, the list already partially establishes its scope in the lede - "This list is a collection of the more notable instances." I agree wholeheartedly with Obi that further discussion of scope would be a good thing, and that we shouldn't just go off of the previous framing used in the lede, but suggesting that we shouldn't discuss inclusion criteria now is pretty much saying "I'm not here to figure out how to create a worthwhile encyclopedic list, just here to see what extra drama I can stir up." Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:20, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Kevin, your consistent refusal to discuss actual content would be amusing if it weren't (sorry, I have some affection for the subjunctive mood) so freaking tendentious. I didn't refuse to discuss inclusion criteria, I merely said that I didn't think this was a good time to have the discussion. The fact that you (a) can't or won't read, understand, and/or respond to comments about content and (b) can't seem to stop yourself from accusing me of all kinds of random bad things just makes it even more clear to me that this is not a good time to have this discussion. At this point, like your suggestions that I be blocked for using the talk page, your false accusations about my intent in naming straw poll sections, your attributing edits to me that were made by others, your successful attempt to impose full protection on this page when you yourself instigated the edit-war which made the page protectable, and your oblique insinuations about my motives, your insistence that this is a good time to try to design inclusion criteria rather than discussing the particular content that's contested is pretty much saying "I can't get my way by building consensus, so I'm going to try to rewrite the rules until I win by a TKO."— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:36, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Alf: please stop misrepresenting what other people have said, and please stop disrupting the page in general. I probably won't have time to compile a reasonable ANI report with diffs until tonight when I land, but if your behavior hasn't changed, intend to do so then. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Conflict of interest?

It strikes me that there's an argument to be made that editors who accepted money from the WMF or associated organizations to attend this conference have a conflict of interest when it comes to editing material about the conference. Is there support on this page for holding those editors, many of whom have self-identified above, to the usual COI editing guidelines and/or slapping some connected contributor templates at the top?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:09, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

attending the conference, no. But if such editors were directly part of the decision making process that led to this controversy then one might consider them involved and they should take no admin action accordingly, but should feel free to comment here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:43, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Not even if they took money to attend? Really? And I'm not asking about admin actions, but editing the article.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:19, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

no. If you get a free airline ticket does this mean you have a conflict of interest wrt that airline or even that flight? A conflict of interest requires that your interests conflict - I fail to see how someone who got a scholarship now has a conflict of interest with some event they attended - unless part of their scholarship to the conference was an agreement to only speak positively of the conference in social media and they risked having to repay the scholarship if they broke this agreement - anyway isn't this page the wrong place for this discussion - if there's an article about that conference it should go there.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:39, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

The idea that someone who got a scholarship here has a conflict of interest is a complete fallacy. Everyone who applied received a scholarship, as long as they applied. This means that there were Wikipedians and non-Wikipedians from all walks of life roaming the halls of the building that day. To suggest otherwise, assumes that there is no good faith to be had in this conference.

Alf, I have nothing against you as an editor, but it is tiring to see sections being made and attempts at discussion bordering a conspiracy being created. Seriously, this talk page is for the list of Wikipedia controversies. Since the Kohs issue has been brought up, a good 90% of all the existing material on this page has been turned into a discussion on whether it is essentially a conspiracy that Kohs was banned and if it should be added at all. Heck, we might as well create a page called "Times Wikipedians wanted to include something to the site and it was denied" just to place all of this on, as that would be better than having it here. Honestly, that article where it was mentioned was rife with errors, including parts where I am quoted. Yes, I bungled up a discussion with a friend, but she is on record as saying that the entire environment in which it occurred was not conducive to good journalism. In addition to this, New York Magazine is a reliable source, but that doesn't mean that we should be taking them at their word. If so, then there are 22,000 editors on this site, and that is a real number, because they are a reliable source. The Kohs controversy was linked in that section, but only to a website which I suspect reported on it because they were told about the issue. That is also the only site talking about this, and if you remove that, then there is nothing that New York Magazine could have linked, because no one has published anything else to that degree.

Furthermore, I know exactly why Kohs was banned, and most of the discussion here does not even touch on it. I have hinted at it above because I respect him as a person and will not disclose publicly why, but to suggest that the organizers of this conference are people who had it out to get him is not true, as there were plenty of reasons to ban him. I will let the organizers of the conference state here if they want to why that is the case, but I can attest as someone who went there and knows everyone who planned the event, there was nothing to hide because this was open to everyone. As the keynote speaker said, if you explicitly include everyone, then you are implicitly excluding others. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:01, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

There has been an excellent discussion of the implications of the keynote speaker's remarks on Wikipediocracy, for what it's worth. That's neither here nor there since her remarks were made after the decision by organizers to ban Mr. Kohs and were made in reference to lack of civility on wiki, not as an existential statement about a person registering and participating a conference advertised as being open to "skeptics." Ultimately, the Kohs ban was covered in a media source and would seem to qualify for inclusion in this list, it seems to me. Carrite (talk) 05:08, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Ktr101, the conversation is "90%" about Kohs because the article is locked because of an edit war over that very issue. What else would you suggest we talk about? I thought I'd try to cool things down by doing a little copy-editing=by-proxy since the prose quality of the article has degenerated severely while I was away from it. This led to my being roundly accused by all and sundry of trying to make a point and asked a number of times to stop. So I did. We're now meant to be discussing the Kohs thing while the article is locked, and if we try to discuss any other aspects of the page we get yelled at. The talk page is for discussing improvements to the article. Non-Kohs-based discussion is deprecated. Now you're deprecating Kohs-based discussion? What in the world should we talk about? What you and your conference buddies know in secret that affects your editing of the page but that no one who wasn't in your smoke-free-filled safe-spaces is allowed to hear about? Pray, do enlighten us.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 06:03, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

One thing I've noticed is the authoritarian and directive tone taken by several of the conference attendees who are participating in this discussion. What's up with the bossy and intolerant attitudes? Perhaps it's the same attitude that contributed to the decision to ban Kohs from the conference, contravening the conference's inclusion code. Wikipedia, however, is supposed to be a congenial, collaborative environment. It's ironic that the attendees at the conference appear, at least on this page, to be trying to undermine that ideal to such an extent. Cla68 (talk) 22:09, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Not only are they bossy, but they're extremely reticent about telling us how much money they got from the WMF to attend the conference. In my profession, that kind of COI, essentially a junket, must be declared openly. Kevin (any Kevin will do), care to tell us how much you were paid to attend the conference descriptions of which you were previously edit-warring over?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:34, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Alf, I've already given detailed instructions on how to find the budget for the conference as a whole in at least one other forum you're commenting on. But, to make it a bit easier for you to find the entire budget - lmgtfy.com/?q=wikiconference+usa+grant - that said, I was not paid anything to attend the conference, and am not sure where you got that idea. Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:14, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

LMGTFY, super old-school! So you didn't get a "scholarship" to attend, as the other Kevin did? I got the idea that you got paid to attend because the other Kevin said that he got paid to attend and that everyone who asked also got paid to attend and he seemed to be including you in that. If I'm wrong and you bought your own ticket and paid for your own hotel, I abjectly and (actually) seriously apologize for impugning your ethics.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:23, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

There's a difference between "My flight to the conference was paid for, as was my hostel" and "I was paid to attend the conference." If I was supposed to be paid to attend the conference, I should go bug someone about my check. FTR: I don't view attending a conference on a scholarship as a significant COI in this discussion - probably one about at the same level as the swarm of Koh's friends that have shown up here from Wikipediocracy. Btw, still curious why your formatting of this discussion has both involved so many separate sections and seemingly been structured to avoid bringing in editors not connected to the issue in any way. Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:31, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Noted. Kevin Gorman, unlike the rest of the professional world, doesn't think that a free trip to NYC with lodging constitutes payment. Just for instance, see what the New York Times thinks about such issues.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Alf, this is bordering on disruptive. WP:COI says "when advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest." You haven't made clear how someone who received a scholarship is, post-facto, advancing their "outside" interests by editing a section of an article that is tangentially related to said conference. If Kevin's regular paycheck came from the conference organizers, and he was looking forward to next month's check, and he feared that if he wrote something bad about the conference they wouldn't send him the check, then, yes, one might consider that to be a COI. But that does not seem to be the case here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:03, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

How is it disruptive, Obiwan? No one is forced to respond to me if they don't want to, and I'm certainly not badgering anyone who chooses to remain silent. In any case, I have made it well clear how accepting free travel and lodging and then writing about the organization who paid can be considered a conflict of interest by reasonable people. Many professional codes of ethics count junketing as reportable gifts. Journalists cannot accept free trips from subjects they're going to write about. University faculty members cannot accept gifts in furtherance of their research without prior approval of their deans or IRB committees and subject to strict limitation. Politicians have strict reporting requirements and limitations on the kinds of free travel they can accept, given that they may be making decisions that affect the gift-givers. A wide variety of professions agree that this kind of thing creates the appearance of a conflict of interest and therefore forbid it.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

You.. don't know what an IRB is, do you? Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

You don't know how many small schools organize their faculty research ethics oversight, do you? Not every school can afford to have as many committees as Cal, friend.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Alf, enough with hassling Kevin G about this. I see no conflict of interest. For what it's worth, if you want full disclosure, I attended the conference myself, and my expenses were fully paid thanks to a combination of monies from the Wiki Education Foundation and a scholarship from the conference organizers. I don't regard this fact as influencing me in the slightest in the discussion here. Conference organizers may have a COI, but neither Kevin nor I were involved in the organization --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for popping in JB. And just to be clear to everyone else: although I do know more background to this situation than most conference attendees, I was not one of the conference organizers. Also glad to hear you were partially funded by the WEF: hopefully that signals a step in the right direction for the USEP in a lot of ways. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

@Jbmurray:: Yeah, you're right that it's enough on the subject, and I'm dropping it now. In any case, the problem is not whether editors are influenced by gifts, but if there's the appearance of influence. It looks so bad for Wikipedia, whether editors are influenced by gifts or not. Most professional organizations understand this and make rules against it.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Alf, you are comparing apples and oranges. For a conflict of interest to exist there must be some sort of explicit or potential quid pro quo - an understanding or possible expectation that your favorable treatment of X will lead to favorable treatment of Y, or alternately that an unfavorable review will decrease your chances of being offered a junket in the future. This you have not established. If we were to apply your standard, anyone who received a scholarship from a university would have a conflict wrt to that university, and any editor who received a tax break would be conflicted wrt to the US government, and any Wikipedia editor who got a scholarship to join a conference would be conflicted in editing any article about Wikipedia. It's a ridiculous extension of the ideas of conflict of interest. The scholarship has been paid for, and there was no implicit assumption anywhere that editors were asked to favorably edit about the conference after the fact - and in any case this is not an article about the conference, this is an article about controversies and who was uninvited from said conference. It's just too much of a stretch to be credible. The editors in question risk nothing by blasting the conference here and gain nothing by praising it, at least not in any way you've demonstrated.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

And. . . you guys just strayed in to something I think is always worth talking about. What does it matter if Alf is being disruptive, Obi-wan? And JB, how do you know that it is enough for the everyone else watching this thread? I don't want to imply that I've disagreed with Alf on everything s/he has said on this page, but I'll still evoke Evelyn Beatrice Hall/Voltaire here. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." All of you have the right to ignore Alf. Everyone certainly should not feel obligated to respond to what s/he says. But I find it incredibly disturbing that some editors that I've had great discussions with elsewhere are suggesting s/he should stop saying something for any reason whatsoever. Is this what we want to be as a community? Has everyone forgotten what this discussion is about in the first place? Now I'm watching again, and I would like to hear what Alf has to say. If I am not interested in hearing more in that vein, I won't reply to his/her comment. But, please, don't ask him/her to be quiet, because then you're not just stepping on his/her privilege to say what s/he believes; you're forgetting about my- and others'- privilege to hear him/her out. ,Wil (talk) 02:22, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Wil, in order to have useful discussions, editors are often told to WP:DROPTHESTICK, and that they are violating Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines - specifically, "Stay on topic: Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject (much less other subjects)" The talk page is WP:NOTAFORUM. Now, some discussion of editor behavior is normal as well, even if formally you are supposed to focus on content, not contributor, but when someone is being disruptive on a talk page it's normal to tell them to knock it off. Alf is beating a dead horse w.r.t. conflict of interest, no-one has supported their pov, and their pov about conflict of interest is not supported by our WP:COI policy, and continuing to badger editors here about it is disruptive. Alf was previously critiqued by several editors for spamming the talk page with trivial edit notices - which is now water long under the bridge. Editors are often told to go to a different forum to pursue their means - for example, to take it to their personal talk page, or to take it to an appropriate noticeboard. see WP:LISTEN, specifically, "In some cases, editors have perpetuated disputes by sticking to an allegation or viewpoint long after the consensus of the community has decided that moving on to other topics would be more productive." as well as WP:POINT, "When one becomes frustrated with the way a policy or guideline is being applied, it may be tempting to try to discredit the rule or interpretation thereof by, in one's view, applying it consistently." - which Alf was accused of during the 6 trivial edit requests that arrived shortly after the page was protected. FWIW, my whole post here is actually off topic for this page, so feel free to sanction me for it, fwiw.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:38, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I'll violate NOTFORUM as well by mentioning that the reason for that procedure is very to understand once it is realized that the purpose of this website is to develop an encyclopedia. Even with all the rules, there are many talk pages which resemble war zones where pro-X editors battle anti-X people. No progress would occur if talk pages were owned by whoever was the loudest or most persistent. No human rights are being disturbed because people are welcome to say whatever they want—they just have to do it somewhere else. Johnuniq (talk) 07:25, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Issues

WR found definitive proof...

POV

Notability template

Copying within Wikipedia

Conflict of Interest

Wales and his lady friend

Doran

Perennial controversies

Tags

Arbitration sanctions

Moving forward

Undue Weight/Neutrality Flag

American women writers

Wikipedian of the Year

Amanda Fillipachi pieces

COI editing

Removal of Gregory Kohs material

Jason Collins

Anita Sarkeesian

RfC: Should the vandalism to Anita Sarkeesian be included in this list?

Survey

Threaded discussion

Sarkeesian: post-RfC comment

Alleged "outing"

Rand Paul

Chelsea Manning?

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

Protected edit request on 7 June 2014

Alf, stop spamming the talk page with trivial grammar corrections

Kevin Gorman, you ought to read the page history

Forget about it

Inclusion criteria, redux

inclusion criteria draft

Discussion

Conflict of interest?