Talk:Sednaya Prison

WARNING: ACTIVE COMMUNITY SANCTIONS

The article Sednaya Prison, along with other pages relating to the Syrian Civil War and ISIL, is designated by the community as a contentious topic. The current restrictions are:

Limit of one revert in 24 hours: This article is under WP:1RR (one revert per editor per article per 24-hour period)

Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be sanctioned.

Remedy instructions and exemptions

Enforcement procedures:

Violations of any restrictions (excluding 1RR/reverting violations) and other conduct issues should be reported to the administrators' incidents noticeboard. Violations of revert restrictions should be reported to the administrators' edit warring noticeboard.
Editors who violate any listed restrictions may be blocked by any uninvolved administrator, even on a first offense.
An editor must be aware before they can be sanctioned.

With respect to any reverting restrictions:

Edits made solely to enforce any clearly established consensus are exempt from all edit-warring restrictions. In order to be considered "clearly established" the consensus must be proven by prior talk-page discussion.
Edits made which remove or otherwise change any material placed by clearly established consensus, without first obtaining consensus to do so, may be treated in the same manner as clear vandalism.
Clear vandalism of any origin may be reverted without restriction.
Reverts of edits made by anonymous (IP) editors that are not vandalism are exempt from the 1RR but are subject to the usual rules on edit warring. If you are in doubt, contact an administrator for assistance.

If you are unsure if your edit is appropriate, discuss it here on this talk page first. Remember: When in doubt, don't revert!

Syria Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Syria, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Syria on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SyriaWikipedia:WikiProject SyriaTemplate:WikiProject SyriaSyria articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Correction and Detention Facilities (defunct)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Correction and Detention Facilities, a project which is currently considered to be defunct.Correction and Detention FacilitiesWikipedia:WikiProject Correction and Detention FacilitiesTemplate:WikiProject Correction and Detention FacilitiesCorrection and Detention Facilities articles

Human rights Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Human rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Human rights on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Human rightsWikipedia:WikiProject Human rightsTemplate:WikiProject Human rightsHuman rights articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

It is requested that a photograph be included in this article to improve its quality.

Wikipedians in Syria may be able to help!

The external tool WordPress Openverse may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

Upload

State department

al-Masdar is not a reliable source. Neither is the Daily Caller. Here is the actual interview [1]. It's nothing like these fake sources pretend it is.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:38, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

According to whom?Mr.User200 (talk) 19:52, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Our criteria on reliable sources WP:RS. Quit adding this bullshit into the article.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:04, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User:EkoGraf - re [2]. the US State Department is the WP:PRIMARY source. The issue is not whether the guy said "possibly" but why and when did he say it. WP:SECONDARY sources, reliable ones, are NOT emphasizing this one particular word which could be interpeted here in a variety of ways (and it appears to apply only to the situation many years ago). Only shit sources like al-Masdar are trying to play this disingenuous (and frankly, evil) "gotcha" game where they take one word out of thousands and try to twist it into something it's not. And let's not forget this is the same outlet that employed a neo-Nazi.

And this "no consensus" that al-Masdar was unreliable was the result of dedicated WP:BATTLEGROUND warriors brigading and disrupting the discussion. At the very least everyone, even you, agreed that it cannot be used for anything controversial. Denying mass murder is fucking controversial. So stop with this nonsense.

So. Find a actual reliable source or quit adding this disgusting murder-denial in.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:21, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

MR JONES: So if you look – so obviously, these photos date over several years from 2013 to 2017. If you look at the earliest photo, the August 13 photo, this is during the construction phase, and these HVAC facilities, the discharge stack, the probable firewall, the probable air intake, this is in the construction phase. This would be consistent if they were building a crematorium.
Then we look at the January 15 and we’re looking at snowmelt on the roof that would be consistent with a crematorium. So --
QUESTION: Or just a warmer part of a building, right?
MR JONES: Possibly.

The language the State Department uses is more much cautious. They're making assumptions and guesswork based off of photographs and by no means know for sure there's a crematorium. However, saying that it exists for sure on a Wikipedia article would be gravely misleading, WP:OR, and WP:POV. Étienne Dolet (talk) 01:39, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not your job to interpret (or misinterpret) primary sources. Find a RELIABLE source to back up your text. And it's not OR or POV if it's straight from reliable sources. Stop obfuscating.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:43, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm all for interpretation, but this is so direct that there's no need for it. We can use the quote directly:

QUESTION: Or just a warmer part of a building, right?
MR JONES: Possibly.

It doesn't get more clear-cut than that. Étienne Dolet (talk) 01:49, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If it doesn't get more clear-cut than that then you shouldn't have a problem finding a RELIABLE source which talks about it. But you do. So it's not. Quit playing asinine games. You know how Wikipedia works. Reliable sources or it goes.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:53, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And you should know that WP:PRIMARY sources aren't banned outright on this project. That is, if we don't interpret them and quote straight from the source, there's nothing wrong in using them. In this particular case, it will be especially helpful for our readers because at this point, we're misrepresenting the State Department's position on this and acting as if they KNOW that there's a crematorium rather than simply saying that they're guessing that there is one based off of their observations from photographs. Étienne Dolet (talk) 02:00, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

They're not "banned" but they're not allowed for controversial stuff. And if you tell me that this - the issue of mass murder of thousands - is "non controversial" again... "We"'re not misrepresenting shit. You are misrepresenting them. Based on a sketchy ass source.

One more time. Reliable source. Find it or get this crap out.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:07, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"They're not "banned" but they're not allowed for controversial stuff." - Curious, which part of WP:PRIMARY did you read that from? Étienne Dolet (talk) 02:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary or tertiary source, and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors., " A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge"

And also "Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources.... challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources".

Let me stress that. Multiple. High-quality

So please go ahead and take this junk out.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:24, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's only if we're interpreting the primary source. I say, we can quote it directly, but that's if we need to. Al-Masdar summed up this press briefing pretty well, and that source is not entirely banned from Wikipedia. You, yourself, have said it's okay to use it for non-controversial stuff. And it's not like it's covering anything controversial either. Rather, it's summarizing the press briefing. Unless you can say that a press briefing is controversial, I'll happily remove it. Étienne Dolet (talk) 02:38, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Look, we're not going to get anywhere. Who cares if the briefing is controversial or not. What's controversial is how YOU and your used-to-employ-neo-Nazi source are interpreting it. That's it. I'm just gonna wait for that reliable secondary source.... Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:40, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to repeat myself here, but we can use WP:PRIMARY sources, as long as we don't analyze them. So what part of "However, when pressed by a reporter if it could simply be a warmer part of the building, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones responded "possibly". are we misrepresenting here? Étienne Dolet (talk) 02:47, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is exactly the case when something "he said" must be fist interpreted by a secondary RS to be included here. Why should anyone use a primary source and cherry pick something he likes from the primary source if there are many secondary RS on the subject? My very best wishes (talk) 03:09, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is cherry-picking a quote from a primary source. Hence removed. My very best wishes (talk) 02:36, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not seeing how an exact quote from what was said in the press briefing is in violation of WP:PRIMARY. Nothing is being misinterpreted, everything is per the source. It was a straightforward, descriptive statement of facts from the primary source that can be verified. Per your request, I additionally provided a secondary (non-Masdar) source that was cited, which you seem to have removed. If its going to be like that, then I can only say I agree with both Étienne Dolet and Mr.User200 that when the reporter pressed the guy what was said in response needs to be mentioned. But I'm not really going to press the rather trivial issue here. EkoGraf (talk) 03:51, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Current version of the lead tells: According to the US State Department a crematorium was constructed with the purpose.... Yes, I think this is a correct summary of the statement by the State Department, as was also reflected in secondary RS about this statement. Is it something fully proven or "the truth"? No. If there are any specific concerns about it (as reflected in secondary RS), they can be included in the body of the page. My very best wishes (talk) 16:37, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Compare the first, long, quotation Etienne pastes above from the interview with the second, short, quotation. In the first, it is clear to me that the "possibly" responds only to the additional point about the snowmelt on Jan 15 and not to the long list of other pieces of jigsaw the State Dept is putting together. In the second quotation that's not clear at all. Quoting the end of the exchange without the context is clearly cherry-picking and misleading. This shows that quoting primary sources can be misleading; the act of choosing what to quote from a complex mess of many facts is an act of interpretation. This is why WP policy is to use reliable secondary sources as soon as you enter the territory of interpretation, to avoid original research that generates dubious interpretations. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:37, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Turns out the Germans are questioning this also. Étienne Dolet (talk) 03:07, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:22, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's not "the Germans"; it's one German journalist. He questions the timing of the release and says the US case is not conclusive. He does not refer to the State Dept interview, or mention the "possibly" material. The only thing encyclopedia-worthy in the article is the quote from AI, which is already in the article. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:48, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In case anyone wonders what I'm "wow!"ing about, here's the part removed (should be stricken) by EtienneDolet [3].Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:41, 21 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]