Talk:Phil Shiner

'Guardian makes no mention' - is it OR or UNDUE, etc ?

I originally put a CN on what was a hard-to-verify sweeping statement about all its coverage. As nobody has supplied a citation for this (including when adding citations for another CN), I've reworded the statement so it's now verifiable (partly by adding the WP:WEASEL word 'some'). The only problem is, much and all as I love the fact that somebody tried to point out The Guardian's interesting behaviour, I suspect it's quite likely to be in violation of one of our myriad rules, perhaps WP:OR, perhaps WP:UNDUE, or whatever. Since I like it, I won't be removing it myself. But I think others might want to have a look at it to see whether it should stand, or be modified, or be deleted. (Incidentally I'm currently just relying on my memory about the sample article and the fact that nobody has challenged what was said about the editorial - I may later check them more thoroughly, but I don't have time right now, and I may forget later, so somebody else might care to check instead of me).Tlhslobus (talk) 14:04, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

On further reflection, I have decided the sentence needs to be removed mainly per WP:NPOV, and possibly also other rules such as WP:OR. It is an implicit criticism of the Guardian, a criticism not made by any Reliable Source, but instead introduced by a Wikipedia editor, and supported only by the 'research' of Wikipedians. Also, the Guardian is not given an opportunity to reply. And it is largely irrelevant to the subject matter of the article, since it's telling us something about the Guardian rather than about Phil Shiner, so it's probably also something like WP:UNDUE. So I will now remove it.Tlhslobus (talk) 19:47, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Done.Tlhslobus (talk) 19:49, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

prominent public platform from which to promote his false accusations, and lent them credibility

This is blatantly WP:OR. While your analysis may be correct, it still requires a reliable source to explicitly state the same before we may include it. Keri (t · c) 14:37, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Middlesex University

The University's staff directory does not mention him. I have therefore deleted the reference to his being a professor there.Alekksandr (talk) 20:13, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Alekksandr, it appears from this webpage and this one that Shiner was indeed a professor at Middlesex in 2014, though I'm not clear when he left. Best wishes JezGrove (talk) 20:45, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Inclusion of opinions of Kemp and Mercer about Shami Chakrabarti.

For some reason, the article is being used to air the cherry-picked opinions of two former army officers, Richard Kemp and Johnny Mercer, both who hold rather pronounced political views, about Shami Chakrabarti, who was Shadow Attorney General. The opinions have been taken from an article in the The Telegraph. Perhaps if, given the source, what Chakrabarti said about Shiner had been detailed, including the opinions might have been justified, but the case for including opinions about Chakrabarti of that kind and in that way in an article about Phil Shiner is tenuous, particularly since BLP material is supposed to be balanced and written conservatively. I deleted the material. Wee Curry Monster re-added it, stating in justification that it is "relevant cited content."     ←   ZScarpia   00:42, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Probably because it is relevant cited content. Johnny Mercer was a long time critic of Phil Shiner, he is also an MP and has been twice the Minister for Veteran Affairs. Richard Kemp is also a well known commentator on military affairs. Shami Chakrabarti continued to defend Shiner after he had been found guilty of multiple examples of both criminal and unethical conduct. It's been edited since but her defence of him was originally added to the article, which made adding the rebuttal relevant. WCM_email 07:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Then I suggest that the material is re-written to follow the pattern of the source, describing Chakrabarti's involvement with Shiner and outlining what she had to say, then attaching the criticisms, giving some kind of indication of why the two opinions have any significance at all. Though the two, Kemp in particlular, may be useful rentagobs for the newspapers, I don't think the encyclopaedic quality of the article is improved by including their opinions. The way the article reads at the moment is that it is being used to shoehorn in a couple of polemical opinions about a person other than the subject of the article from two ex-officers, one who'd been a captain and one a colonel (both who happen to to have mixed reputations and both who probably have axes to grind).     ←   ZScarpia   10:16, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that you have strongly held opinions about two individuals and are not the person to write neutrally or objectively on what they have to say. I'll look to further community input but I'm left with the strong impression you should probably not be editing in this area at all, possibly not even suited to Wikipedia as a whole. WCM_email 11:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)