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Merge and delete the IPT article

Responding to the request at WP:ANRFC. In this closure, I have considered the comments in both of the discussion sections, as requested in the ANRFC filing. Three editors took positions in the discussion, one supporting the merge and two opposing, but one of the opposing editors did not give reasons for their position and as such was discounted.

WP:Merge gives four possible reasons to merge an article: the articles are duplicates, the articles have a large overlap, one article is very short and unlikely to be expanded, or one article requires the context from a broader article in order to make sense. It is not clear how the arguments discussed here, e.g. whether or not the IPT is a nonprofit, address one of these four categories. By contrast, as suggested by User:Aircorn, a reasonable argument under the second category might be that the IPT is exclusively associated with Steve Emerson, if evidence to this effect is presented. In the absence of either a numerical majority or clear and compelling arguments relevant to one of the WP:Merge categories, the result is not merged.

Note that this close does not evaluate whether the articles are compliant with policy (e.g. WP:NOR); it would be a good idea for the editors here to resolve these issues, but they would only have become relevant to the merger question if so much of the article was noncompliant that nearly all of it had to be deleted, and arguments to this effect have not been presented. On the topic of canvassing, in my opinion the messages were indeed non-neutral, but none of the editors joined the discussion here so it did not affect the outcome. Sunrise (talk) 19:29, 24 July 2014 (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 Investigative Project on Terrorism article needs to be deleted, and any accurate, verifiable, properly sourced information should be merged with this article. Following are valid reasons for doing so:

  1. In late 1995 "The Investigative Project" was organized as a "counterterrorism think-tank" by Steven Emerson. There are no reliable sources that confirm the "Investigative Project on Terrorism" was ever established as an official "non-profit organization", or anything else other than Steven Emerson's "think-tank". See the following links: [1] [2] [3] There are many more reliable sources that will confirm this information.
  2. Emerson's for-profit company, SAE Productions, was incorporated in 1995 in Delaware. He initially organized the think-tank, IPT, in late 1995, but did not launch the non-profit "Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation" until 2006 in Washington, D.C. The IPT self-published website does not disclose the information, but CAIR, and The Tennessean have published it. [4] Anti-Muslim crusaders make millions spreading fear
  3. With regards to the BLP violation in the very biased WP:POV, false statement about Emerson WP:BLP, be advised the only reference Emerson made was as an individual counterterrorism expert BEFORE he even thought about starting his "think-tank". He was correctly quoted by John F. Sugg of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting as follows: Emerson's most notorious gaffe was his claim that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing showed "a Middle Eastern trait" because it "was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible." (CBS News, 4/19/95) [5]

I will now proceed with the request to merge. Atsme☯Consult 00:06, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

There is no reason for merger. IPT is suffiecently notable to have an article of it's own.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 13:07, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
That is also to say that none of your reasons are remotely valid for merging.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 18:15, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
  • IPT is a non-profit. IPT was founded in 1995. They make these claims on there own site. Here is there 501(c)3 tax ID Tax ID: 13-4331855. That came from their website. Their website is unquestionable a reliable source for this information. The claim that they are a non-profit is not controversial. This is not a reason for a merger. Your option 2 is not a reason for merger. Your option 3 is not a reason for merger. You offered no valid reaon for merger. A BLP isn't a reason for merger. That's if there even is a BLP. You discussed an issue on the IPT page that wasn't a BLP. I'm going to wait for you to give a valid reason for merger then delete the tag. Or you could just remove the tag.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 21:42, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
  • IPT does not exist as a legal entity. If anything, it is Steven Emerson simply referring to his think-tank project as "IPT" which does not make it a separate entity worthy of being a separate article in WP. You are referring to three different entities, and trying to lump sum them into one, randomly adding inaccurate information at the discretion of whoever is confused enough to add it to IPT. WP should not have an article about an entity that does not exist. I'm surprised the article made it through the review process.
  1. The Investigative Project = a "think-tank" led by Steven Emerson;
  2. The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation = a non-profit 501(c)3 foundation, tax ID Tax ID: 13-4331855, organized in April 2006;
  3. Steven Emerson = a terrorism expert, former news correspondent, etc.
Application for the incorporation of IPTF was received on April 28, 2006 by the Delaware Secretary of State - see Narrative Part IV, Addendum to IRS Form 1023.[6] If the entity did not exist prior to April 28, 2006, it has no history prior to April 28, 2006, therefore, any references to, statements made by, or work done by Steven Emerson prior to April 28, 2006 belongs in the Steven Emerson article under the section The Investigative Project, including all references to his statement about the Oklahoma City Bombing. Wikipedia editors are responsible for providing accurate information, therefore the inclusion of random statements that don't belong in a particular article, such as the comment referencing something Steven Emerson said about the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 when he was working as an individual terrorism expert does not belong in an article about the Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation. Furthermore, since there is no separate entity under the actual title, "The Investigative Project on Terrorism", there is no justification or need for it to be an article on Wikipedia. If you want to create an article for The Investigative Project On Terrorism Foundation, which has the above referenced tax ID number, then do so, but stop trying to lump sum everything under the IPT article. Atsme☯Consult 21:19, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
  • This is a link to IPT's website. They don't share your differentiation. Your differentiation is original research. Any problems you have with the IPT article should be posted there.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 21:54, 29 June 2014 (UTC)Serialjoepsycho (talk) 21:51, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. No convincing reason for merger. Epeefleche (talk) 21:31, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose- There is no case for merger.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 21:47, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Delete (sorry, wrong word)
  • Approve - This article is not even named properly, and is nothing more than a hodge podge of 3 different entities including The Investigative Project, Steven Emerson, and The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation. It is an embarrassment to what is supposed to be an online encyclopedic resource readers can depend on for accurate information. Atsme☯Consult 04:24, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I feel the need to remind you WP:VOTE that Polling is not a substitute for discussion. A topic up for discussion is why we should use your original research as a reason for merger. That would be abit of an embarrassment since there is a prohibition on original research wp:or. The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation (as you are calling) it makes no distinction or differentiation between it and what you are calling The Investigative project. In your original research above you mention The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation was not launched until 2006. http://www.investigativeproject.org/about.php There website claims they were founded in 1995. Your source above for your original research only shows they they incorporated in 2006. This does not disprove IPT's own claim of 1995 founding or that claim by multiple sources. Is this related to your previously stated purpose of removing Islamophobia from wikipedia?Serialjoepsycho (talk) 05:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
Excuse me? The original research you refer to happens to be cited from both a television report, and the Tennessean, which are the same reliable sources used in this article, and not WP:OR. I do not need you to remind me about discussion, either, especially considering I'm the one who began this discussion. Everything else you mentioned is incorrect, misleading, and further validates the need for merging, deleting this article, and creating an accurate article for The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation. Wiki editors are supposed to understand the information they include in the articles they create, and at least know enough about the subject to provide accurate information for readers of Wikipedia, yet you continue to provide misinformation. Again, as editors our obligation is to provide accurate information, and that is not what this article represents. Atsme☯Consult 16:04, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry which sources? You'd have to be more specific. You wouldn't mean this Tennessean article would you? This article doesn't make the distinction between your IPT and IPTF. It tries the remove the distinction between IPT and SAE. Let's see your sources so far all we have is your synthesis. Is this related to your previously stated purpose of removing Islamophobia from wikipedia?Serialjoepsycho (talk) 21:19, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps if you would read the information I provided in this discussion, all of which is available as sourced references (inline citations) in the article, you wouldn't be asking silly questions. You should also read the discussion in the article's Talk page because the sources were already questioned, and validated by other editors, particularly the Tennessean which published the documents, and wrote an article about them. The same with the television report. Bottomline - two reliable sources exposed IPT as basically non-existent, or at least not legitimate until it was actually incorporated, and recognized by the IRS as a non-profit foundation named The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation. I don't see how you can possibly fix the current article - possibly a rename - and then when that is done, you can focus on and add information relevant to the foundation from April 2006 forward, not including the other two separate entities. Accuracy - accuracy - accuracy. If editors can't distinguish the difference between an individual, a think-tank, and a legal foundation, they don't need to be editing Wikipedia articles. Atsme☯Consult 21:46, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
I could but then there is that original research. There is a reason for the policy against it. The illegitimacy is your synthesis. The sources don't say it was illegitimate. They say it was incorporated as a non-profit in 2006. IPT the foundation suggests they are a continuation of the think think. They didn't proceed it, they are it. Multiple sources suggest the same. This isn't about accuracy at all. This solely you trying to push POV. This is you Wikipedia:Gaming_the_system. Wikilawyering policy in bad faith. Promoting original research to continue your previous effort to remove Islamophobia from wikipedia. There is no differentiation between your two IPT's. As far as the Material you dislike on the IPT there are about Emerson, Two editors have a consensus against the one you that the material is relevant. Due to your bias there is not much of a willingness to further discuss it. That leaves you the option of soliciting outside opinions. Gaming the system like this is disruptive. You should take a moment and consider changing course.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 22:21, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: Neither Cyclopia nor Serialjoepsycho understand the WP:Canvassing guidelines which state: In general, it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it is done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus. That is exactly what I did, and in good faith. The message I included in my post to the Talk pages of 3 editors (2 involved, and 1 uninvolved Cyclopia) was the "merge rationale" which was done according to the guidelines in WP:Merge, the latter of which neither editors have been able to grasp. Webster's definition of "rationale": a set of reasons or a logical basis for a course of action or a particular belief;. My rationale included facts, not opinion - the goal being to fix an incorrectly titled, poorly cited mess of an article by merging the worthy portions of the article into Steven Emerson in an effort to clean-up the overlap, and then replace (or rename) the incorrectly named article (IPT) with the correct name, The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation, and include accurate, properly cited information, and updates. For that I am being castigated by Serialjoepsycho and Cyclopia. I must have been on vacation when good faith editing became a violation. Atsme☯Consult 09:10, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
    • This is actually evidence that Atsme doesn't understand WP:Canvassing. Nothing in WP:merge overrides the requirements of WP:Canvassing. You mean "facts" the scare quotes being necessary as we aren't actually talking about facts. Your position doesn't stand at all without your commentary and honestly it doesn't stand with your commentary. Your sources do not support your claim. But back to canvassing. You essentially saying that your statements were neutral because you feel you are right. I missed that exemption in WP:Canvassing. But if you feel that you were right then why don't you go post the same message on another editors pages? Dougweller was an involved editor, by your definition, on the IPT page. And It's easy to find uninvolved editors.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 09:39, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Stop cluttering this merge proposal with utter nonsense. You continue to divert attention away from the merge proposal with nonsensical allegations that are clearly disruptive. Give it a rest. My focus is, and always has been on trying to improve and expand this article from being an ambiguous, hodgepodge of a stub that is filled with inaccuracies and misinformation, and turn it into a reliable, accurate article deserving of a place in Wikipedia. Atsme☯Consult 22:22, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

That would be hard to do as this merge proposal is utter nonsense. Which is what my "utter nonsense" highlights. They clearly are disruptive... To your efforts. Your efforts that you lack a valid reason to pursue. Your sources are subordinate to your conjecture. Your sources don't actually support your claims. This "utter nonsense" needs to be said. They serve a purpose of stopping your POV effort.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 22:50, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Merger RFC

Do you support or oppose the above proposed merger of Investigative Project on Terrorism with Steven Emerson and Why?Serialjoepsycho (talk) 07:28, 5 July 2014 (UTC) Previous discussion above this RFC.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 19:01, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Strongly Oppose This merger proposal is based of wp:synth Synthesis of published material. The merger proposal should be closed.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 07:28, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Strongly Agree Support The merge proposal was made because information is being lump summed into IPT (an entity that does not exist), including Steven Emerson's work as a former CNN reporter, or independent reporter/terrorism expert, and/or leader of The Investigative Project, most of which took place 11 years PRIOR to the formation of the non-profit foundation legally titled, "The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation". Look at the infobox on the IPT article to see how WP:NOR, and WP:SYNTH is being abused. Where and how did the information originate for the infobox? I am currently working on an article titled, "The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation", and it makes perfect sense to merge the work Emerson did independently into his own article, and keep the Foundation work separate in the new Foundation article. The IPT article is nothing more than a stub, and contains WP:BLP violations because it is not a legal entity, and refers back to Steven Emerson in a defamatory manner. There is an ongoing discussion about it now at the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive203#Investigative_Project_on_Terrorism. Atsme☯Consult 01:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

The argument for merger depends as much on the conjecture of Atsme as it does on the sources. The sources in question don't actually support his claims. It's purely original research. WP:EXCEPTIONAL Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources. Atsme's provided two sources that suggest that suggest SAE productions was the only organization Emerson founded in 1995. This does nothing to support Atsme's position. It also does little to discount IPT's own claim of 1995 founding. This stands as an exceptional claim but the source isn't strong enough to support it. But then again the sources don't actually support Atsme's merge rationale anyway.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 07:28, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

  • I tried to make sense of the above and failed. Far too much reliance on Primary Sources from both sides and I am unclear as to the reasons for the merger. If there is very little involvement from anyone else other than Emerson in the Investigative Project on Terrorism I would be inclined to merge it here. Everything else just looks like window dressing. AIRcorn (talk) 02:49, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
    • It's a poorly written article. Lorenzo G. Vidino was formerly the Deputy Director of IPT. Former Congressman Pete Hoekstra is a senoir fellow. There are others. It's not only his involvement.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 04:04, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
      • I don't see any mention of IPT in Lorenzo's or Hoekstra's Wikipedia articles. The Jewish policy center link does not mention IPT either(I just did a find search in the link so let may have missed it). The source provided for Hoekstra comes indirectly from IPT so is not ideal either. AIRcorn (talk) 05:59, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
        • It mentions it at the Bottom saying, "Lorenzo Vidino is deputy director at the Investigative Project and author of Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad (2005)." Which I believe is for the purposes of SEC Regulation Fair Disclosure requirements. [11] I pulled that link from there. Lorenzo's article is a stub and Pete's article has been edited little since he joined IPT. Pete has also had few edits overall since 2012 when he lost the senate election.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 06:28, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
  • The merge proposal is synth. The sources for it support the info box (supposedly based on original research) more than the merge rationale.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 02:48, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
offtopic
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.

Merger proposal

Request received 7:46, 30 June 2014 (UTC) at Proposed Mergers noticeboard: Merge Investigative Project on Terrorism into Steven Emerson. Rationale: "There is no such entity as the Investigative Project on Terrorism, and much of the information included in the current article belongs in an article under the actual organization which is The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation founded in April 2006. There is also a separate entity, The Investigative Project, and the Steven Emerson article where some of the information belongs. Everything is being lump summed under an invalid article."

Merger proposal dated September 2014. Discuss here.

Closing per a WP:ANRFC request.
There is a clear consensus against the proposed merge. Armbrust The Homunculus 18:11, 25 September 2014 (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.

  • Agree to merge. The Investigative Project on Terrorism article is riddled with policy violations. For starters, the one sentence lede falsely states that the Investigative Project on Terrorism is a nonprofit organization founded in 1995 by Seven Emerson. The actual legal nonprofit organization did not exist until 2006, and was founded, organized, and received IRS nonprofit status as The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation, Steven Emerson, Exec. Dir. According to WP policy for notability, an organization's notability is neither inherent or inherited, but that seems to be the case with IPT. I am working on a corrected article which can be viewed here: User:Atsme/Investigative_Project_on_Terrorism_Foundation, but I'm having problems making it compliant considering the lack of reliable sources needed to validate notability. Atsme☯Consult 00:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Disagree For the same reasons listed in the previous and recent Merge proposal from the same editor. IPT is a non-profit. IPT was founded in 1995. While it did not incorporate as a non-profit in 1995 it was founded in 1995. This is synth on the part of the proposing editor.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 02:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Per the above disagree and prior proposal comments along the same lines. Epeefleche (talk) 02:39, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Development of the content will be better facilitated by allowing the development of separate articles. Based on what has been presented, the IPT project is not just Steven Emerson. --Arxiloxos (talk) 15:05, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Following above comments but also in light of the current argument on the Talk page of Investigative Project on Terrorism and at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Investigative Project on Terrorism. It is clear that each, the organization and the current director, are two separate entities and should thus remain two articles. Kobuu (talk) 18:21, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Further revisions needed. The references currently included in the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) article fail to meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. The references are either not from reliable sources, or the reference is centered on Mr. Emerson with brief references to IPT as an accomplishment of the subject. The one reference from a reliable source that is included is "Steven Emerson: Combating Radical Islam - Defeating Jihadist Terrorism" published in the Middle East Forum journal. Based on this, I presume there are other reliable sources available on the Internet that will allow IPT to meet the notability requirements and thus qualify it to be its own stand-alone article. In the interest of all parties involved, a reasonable deadline should be set up to allow editors the chance to gather additional reliable sources. Thank you.Djrun (talk) 21:23, 23 September 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.
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