Template talk:Infobox War on Terror detainee

More info please

You added some new infoboxes to some GWOT captives' articles. Can you let me know where interested wikipedians could learn about these inforboxes, and participate in the discussion of what fields they should contain?

I am a bit concerned about the "aliases" field.

• When a captive, like Guantanamo captive 1095, who the US calls "Jumma Jan" tells his Tribunal he has never heard of "Jumma Jan" and that he is really "Zain Al Abedin" does that make one of those names an "alias"? And, if so, which one?
• There are other strange anomalies among the naming of the GWOT captives, and I would really like to have some input on them, prior to more inforboxes being placed.

Cheers! Geo Swan 16:43, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I actually didn't make the infobox but I see your point about the alias field. However how many people having naming discrepancies like "Jumma Jan"? I don't imagine to many. If a note is just put in his name field I'm sure that would be fine. -- Esemono 01:22, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there is confusion over the identity of a very large fraction of the Guantanamo captives. My estimate is that there is some kind of confusion over the identity of well over twenty percent of the Guantanamo captives -- mainly due to an unwillingness or inability to competently maintain the captives' records. See Abdullah Khan.

Cheers! Geo Swan 23:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

So what do you propose? Another field? like confirmed name? -- Esemono 08:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

No, because who would be the authority we trust to confirm them? Certainly not the DoD whose mismanagement of the roster of prisoners is apallingly unreliable.

I guess what I thought was that there should have been a discussion about this infobox, before it was put into use -- where potential weaknesses could have been discussed, prior to implementation. I understand you didn't create this infobox. But I don't understand who did. If I knew I would address my concerns to them.

Cheers! Geo Swan 22:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Just following the Wikipedia policy of being WP:BOLD . If we want to make changes later regarding the template all we have to do is change this page and the changes will be reflected on every page the template is used. -- Esemono 03:42, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, WP:BOLD. My reading of this document is that it is intended to encourage newbies to think that, yes, they are capable of making a meaningful contribution -- and it is not intended to be interpreted as encouragement to avoid consensus-building. I have been a big contributor to the wikipedia's coverage of war on terror captives. I don't own those articles. But I think I have meaningful input to make on these infoboxes. I still don't know where to do that. You didn't design these infoboxes, right? So, who did, and why aren't they reading this talk page? Geo Swan 05:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Ummm why don't you check the history page? Oh and still waiting on the meaningful input. -- Esemono 07:48, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Microformat style

I don't know how to write, or modify infobox templates. I have a couple of questions about that.

The microformat for ages is a great idea. How difficult would it be to create a similar machine readable format for ID numbers?

I am not sure what the intent was for the "CSRT Summary" and "CSRT Transcript" fields. If it was intended to provide a place for links to the document within the .pdf files I think that would be a good idea. The way I do this, is I append the starting page number, after an octothorp. The .pdf files usually contain multiple documents -- sometimes dozens of documents. Inconvenient for readers. They have to not only open the right external link to read the document, they have to remember the page number to go to. Abobe reader won't take them to the right page number. But I find it useful to have the page number in the URL. So, when I want to refer to a document within one of these files I put something like this: [http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt/Set_2_0098-0204.pdf#65 65-82] -- which expands to 65-82

As of September 2007 there are now nine different classes of .pdf files:

Further information: Guantanamo captives documents

It would be great if the template had a field for all these documents, and if they too were of the machine readable microformat style.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 22:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The charge/conviction(s) field...

The field says "charge", but it expands to "conviction(s)".

Twenty captives have been charged. Only one has been convicted.

It is confusing that the charge field expands to conviction. And, I suggest, it is not useful, when only David Hicks has been convicted.

Is it safe for me to go ahead and change the source so the charge field actually expands to say "charge"?

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 03:42, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Update

Please update so the "Detained at" field is not displayed if empty. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 17:40, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

update

1. I tried to add some additional fields.
2. Another contributor excised those additional fields, without explanation.
3. I restored them.

Geo Swan (talk) 14:50, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Please follow WP:CYCLE and explain and discuss changes first once you have been reverted instead of edit warring. I highly doubt that we need all these links to primary sources per WP:LINKFARM. IQinn (talk) 14:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Cycle -- aka Bold, Revert, Discuss is an essay. As I pointed out at Talk:Aafia Siddiqui the editing style of reverting other good faith contributors while only offering cryptic explanations in one's edit summary is regular trigger for edit warring. I consider the advice of BRD to be bad advice.

I think the obligation lies on you to explain why you object to the having fields for the ARB summaries and transcripts as companions for the existing CSRT summary and transcript -- existing fields I don't recall you ever objecting to before.

I don't think you should have reverted my change. I think you should simply have voiced your concern. Having reverted my change I think you should have advised me, so I would have realized that my test of my change didn't work because you had already reverted my change. Geo Swan (talk) 12:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I consider it as good advice you are welcome to be bold but if there are are different opinion about chances that affects hundreds of articles at once you should be more willing to explain your changes first and to discuss them if there are different opinions.

No i disagree you are off base here. Please explain and discuss large scale changes to templates that affect hundreds of articles first. Single articles might be a bit different in this regard but this is a template used on many pages so you should be more careful. IQinn (talk) 13:05, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The links seem useful to me, since it takes these sorts of "somewhat trivial details" like the prisoner's height, out of the main prose, and just throws it "on the back of his card" so to speak, where stats belong. Same with the CSRT/ARB fields, assuming they only appear if a link is given, and won't clutter up the template for people who didn't have an ARB, etc. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 15:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

For the height and weight i agree that it is from questionable importance and there are issues of privacy as well. Could you please point to other templates of biography of living people where we list the weight of the person?

The more troublesome point is that the weight and height of the WTO prisoner is solely based on one primary source. Nobody knows how reliable this source is. I possibly could agree for the height and weight if it would be based on reliable secondary sources. Do we have such secondary sources?

For the large collection of links to all primary source material. No we do not need that, this is exactly what Wikipedia is not WP:LINKFARM. There is already to much focus on these primary sources in the articles further links in the info box are simply overkill. IQinn (talk) 15:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

First, it was my intention to document my changes when they were complete, and I had tested them. I didn't document them, because my test failed when you reverted my change before my test was complete, without giving me a heads-up. Has anyone ever suggested you might consider making a greater effort to show collegiality to other good faith contributors?

As Sherurcij has reminded you, the infobox already contains fields for the CSRT summary and transcript. I don't remember you ever offering a policy-based objection to those fields. The ARB fields are similar enough you surprise me with your concern.

WRT to the weights and heights... Andy Worthington published a paper, Guantanamo’s Hidden History: Shocking statistics of starvation. Page five of that paper lists 80 captives whose weight dropped below 8 stone. That is an WP:RS commenting on their weight, and I suggest that is sufficient for those eighty men's weight to be covered. Carol Rosenberg and others have remarked on Tariq al-Saway doubling his weight to over 400 pounds -- also worth remarking on.

WP:LINKFARM says: "There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article." That is what these links would be.

Finally, I know I have explained to you, literally dozens of times, why I think you are mistaken to call the allegation memos "primary sources". I wish you would either stop doing so, or offer me a meaningful explanation of why you insist on doing so. Geo Swan (talk) 23:06, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

As i said be careful with editing templates we do have better tools for testing something like sandboxes. Please do not complain to me if you run your tests not in an sandbox first and without leaving any explanation or announcement.

The template was created from a very small group of people and there has never been a large consensus for these two fields. No explanation ever has been provided why we need them in the first place and what is the value of a linkfarm to biased primary sources.

Writing a paper about the weight changes of the Guantanamo detainees is one thing. To have a field in the infobox of a biography of an living individual is another. height at arrival {{{inprocess_height}}}, weight at arrival {{{inprocess_weight}}} What is the value of this information for the biography of a specific individual? What encyclopedic value would this information have?

The template has already two field for these types of links. Adding another eight would surely not end up in one or few links. WP:LINKFARM tells us exactly that a collection to (in our care) biased primary sources is not what Wikipedia is about.

You are absolutely mistaken to call these documents secondary sources. I wish you would stop doing so and to accept the meaningful explanations that many editors have given to you. So many editors in the last 4-5 year who told you that these are primary sources for so many reasons. Your only justification for your wrong assumption that these are secondary sources is that information has been summarized and that is what some secondary sources do. But this is so wrong. You are Cherry picking a tiny detailed piece of a policy and you fully ignore all the other parts of the policy. That they have summariesed information does not make them automatically a secondary source. Do you have any other argument that would support your personal view that OARDEC is a secondary source? Many editors have told you in the past that OARDEC is a primary source regardless what they do as they are very close and involved by holding the Tribunals. They are the US military body responsible in organizing the tribunals and any information in connection of the tribunals that has been created by OARDEC is primary source material. IQinn (talk) 15:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

You wrote:

The template was created from a very small group of people and there has never been a large consensus for these two fields.

There is nothing wrong with a small group of contributors, or a single contributor, doing most of the work on a topic -- provided they comply with all our policies while doing so.

Why would you call two relevant links, or even eight relevant links, a WP:LINKFARM? The LINKFARM section of WP:NOT warns against "mere collections" of links, but explicitly says: "There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article". These links would take up less than 5 percent of the article's real estate -- hardly qualifying for the warning of collections of links that "dwarf" an article.

You wrote:

Your only justification for your wrong assumption that these are secondary sources is that information has been summarized and that is what some secondary sources do.

I am going to rephrase the most basic elements of the standard real-world definitions of primary source and secondary source, shared by the wikipedia definition.

• When a scientific researcher, a Guantanamo interrogator, or an investigative reporter, writes up a description of their own activities, that document is a primary source. The drawbacks of these primary documents are potential bias, observer effects, lack of contextual background, tunnel vision, etc.
• When a researcher, intelligence analyst, historian or journalist, draws upon documents written by others, does their best to understand a bunch of other documents, reconcile their ambiguities and contradictions, discard redundancies and conclusions and observations of original authors that they don't consider credible, possibly draw new conclusions not present in the original documents they are summarizing, then the documents they prepared are secondary sources. There are no exemptions, no fine print. There is nothing in the real world definitions, or in the wikipedia definitions that authorizes any of us to say: "Normally this would be a secondary source, but WP:IDONTLIKEIT, so I am going to consider it a primary source."

You wrote:

"You are Cherry picking a tiny detailed piece of a policy and you fully ignore all the other parts of the policy. That they have summariesed information does not make them automatically a secondary source."

And exactly what other aspect of the policy is it you are concerned I am ignoring?

Please don't ask me to be convinced, retroactively, by arguments you remember reading, and claim were definitive counter-arguments to my position, if you aren't paraphrasing those arguments, or offering diffs. I will respond to diffs from previous discussions I have had with other contributors, if you append your own civil and specific questions, or, at my discretion, if I re-read that prior discussion, and see some aspect where I think I could have been clearer, or I recognize some aspect where my position in the previous discussion differs with my current position. Geo Swan (talk) 18:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

That's all a bit WP:TL;DR specially your last paragraph.

These links are exactly what we mean by WP:Linkfarm. You are cherry picking again from this policy. Could you please also answer my question. Why we need them in the first place and what is the value of a "linkfarm" to all these biased primary sources? If you want to challenge existing policies you should provide compelling arguments.

Your WP:IDONTLIKEIT is ridiculous. As your claim that these documents are secondary sources is ridiculous. You do not provide us with any valid new argument. It is the same Cherry picket part of the policy. So i can give you only the same answer.

Many editors have told you in the past that OARDEC is a primary source regardless what they do as they are very close and involved by holding the Tribunals. They are the US military body responsible in organizing the tribunals and any information in connection of the tribunals that has been created by OARDEC is primary source material. IQinn (talk) 21:09, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Spouse not working

Adding info to the spouse field shows nothing. The spouse field for Ammar al-Baluchi is now full and nothing shows. This should be fixed.--Auric talk 00:16, 20 February 2013 (UTC)