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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sam Blacketer controversy

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete. Having read through most of the comments on this page, the prevalent opinion is for this page to be deleted. There has been coverage in the newspapers, but there it seems that this is limited to around 9-10 articles. Many have been using the essjay controversy as an example for a reason for this page to be kept. There is clearly a large difference in the scale of these controversies. The essjay controversy reached hundreds of newspapers whereas the news from this has been somewhat limited. If the article gains anywhere near the same sort of news content as the essjay episode then the article could well be recreated in the future. The notability of the event in long term may yet to be asserted but for the time being this seems to have been somewhat of a tabloid story amougst a few papers.

Further explanation from the previous deleting admin can be found here

For those that oppose the closing of the afd a little early. I do not believe that there will be a massive shift in the opinions given on this page. Any further comments will be mostly be watered down by the shear size of the rest of the page and pretty much all of the points surrounding this article have been covered and it is unlikely that an administrator will source any more useful information from the the remaining time this article has been open. Seddσn talk|WikimediaUK 00:35, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sam Blacketer controversy

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Sam Blacketer controversy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This is an absolute non-event, and is unintelligible for someone outside the Wikipedia community. The parent article has been deleted (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Boothroyd (2nd nomination)), I suggest this article to be deleted too. -- Luk talk 13:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you could use one of the many other sources then? Or do we make up the rules as we go along here on Wikipedia? ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep the article has now improved greatly in the last few days and I think that the application of WP:IAR to allow WP:OR and citing WP is sensible. Smartse (talk) 23:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Sorry, I didn't want to !vote keep, but this has now gotten coverage in New Zealand and Italy aside from the UK. We have to do what we have to do.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or Merge to Wikipedia or some suitable satellite article. This has implications in national politics as it comes after similar scandals involving, for instance, Derek Draper, and .the wider issue of inappropriate filing of MPs' expenses which it would not be putting it too strongly to say has left the politics of the UK a smoking ruin. --TS 17:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete This might get a bit of news coverage, but we really shouldn't have a whole article. There are a few more references that could be added, apparently, but still serious BLP issues. It's not Essjay. This can be mentioned in another article. — Jake Wartenberg 17:58, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete There has been news coverage, but I don't see any evidence that the "controversy" it's generating is a big deal. Unlike Essjay, nothing seems to suggest that this event is causing any changes (either to how people perceive Wikipedia, or what Wikipedia's guidelines are about anything). Likewise, as for David Boothroyd itself it's ONEEVENTy, so I don't believe the article meets the notability guidelines for individuals or for controversies. I'm at "weak delete" for now, though, because there has been some news coverage (as pointed out by people above). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 18:01, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete because there isn't enough material for an article on this incident and the material would be better-placed and more understandable if integrated into one of the "criticisms of Wikipedia"-type articles. The fact the claims have been repeated in media in more than one country does not change this fact - and if we find 120 articles in media in 30 different countries that are basically rewrites of the same original news article, that wouldn't change this fact either. The point in question is not "whether there has been news coverage" but "whether we need an independent article on this incident" - and the answer in my opinion is no. I see no benefit from maintaining an article that essentially should be one paragraph's worth of material in a more integrated overview article, particularly when there are WP:BLP and WP:COATRACK concerns. TheGrappler (talk) 18:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Explanation of !vote - Cube lurker quite fairly asked for clarification. I do think this could be dealt with elsewhere. Whether any text from the current article is used, or a fresh rewrite, I care not. I do think a sysop needs to apply the "delete" button to this page, ergo I am !voting "delete". TheGrappler (talk) 02:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Grappler and Rjanag above. There has been coverage but there are BLP and COATRACK issues that I believe make this article unsustainable. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 19:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete not least because the reporting is so erroneous and biased. For example, the picture Sam deleted was vandalism; the deleted picture showed Cameron making a stupid face, and had some out-of-focus round object in the background that made it look like Cameron had a halo. So, far from wanting Cameron to appear worse, as all these news articles round the world insinuate, Sam just tidied the article up, removing the attack picture and reinserting the neutral picture. As for the "regular alterations" he made during the past two years, they were vandalism reverts. [4][5][6][7][8][9] etc. His socks last edited in February 2007 and November 2007, well before he became an arbitrator. If journalists want us to cite them as "reliable sources", they should at least do their homework and give us something reliable to cite. JN466 19:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think you're overstating the unreliability of the sources. They all correctly quoted the edit summary used when reverting the photo. Sam Blacketer edited David Cameron more than any article, and he was the second most frequent contributor to it by a large margin. Many of those edit were substantial.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] And Fys kept editing until just one month before his sock account, Sam Blacketer, ran for ArbCom. While there are some silly errors (the Arbcom doesn't deal with hundreds of cases a day) the sources seem to have gotten the basic facts right.   Will Beback  talk  09:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Surely this is simply a bad joke. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I am concerned by the knee-jerk impulse to delete on display in this discussion. Notability is not subjective: it is conferred by significant coverage in multiple reliable sources, and whether or not that threshold has been met here is far from clear one way or another. The invocation of WP:ONEVENT and WP:COATRACK is disappointing; the latter seems plainly inapplicable, at least to the version I am looking at, which sticks very close to the issue at hand and the weight accorded by the sources, while former advises that content on individuals notable for one event be covered in an article on that event – which is exactly what this article proposes to do. There is a discussion to be had as to whether or not the coverage is significant or the sources reliable, but we haven't seen it here yet. I think it's too early to judge whether or not there will ultimately be sources sufficient to sustain this as a stand-alone article, but to dismiss the possibility out of hand would be narrow-minded.  Skomorokh  20:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I actually agree that the current text of the article is not malignant in the COATRACK sense. However, I still believe it is very strongly applicable - I think COATRACK tends to follow ONEVENT round like a bad shadow. In theory, all BLP issues in any article are solvable, ergo we never need to delete any article for BLP concerns - yet in practice we do, even for articles where the BLP problems are merely potential, not current. COATRACK seems to merit similar treatment. In my wardrobe, I have a coathanger clearly used for my suit - it's not shaped right for my shirts or my coat. Even when I'm wearing my suit, anybody looking in my wardrobe can see that it is indeed that hanger that my suit is meant to hang upon. Similarly, this article is clearly the coatrack crafted for Mr Boothroyd to hang on, whether he's on it now or not - can we guarantee that this article will continue to abide by the norms we want to hold it to, especially when we know Wikipedia has no systematic process of article maintenance? I think the ONEVENTyness is inevitable - regardless of the fact that there was a pattern of behaviour that continued for some time, there is basically only one story here. "Event" should be read not as "an incident occurring at a specific, discrete timepoint" but rather "how many facets are there to this story" - and it's basically "key contributor to Wikipedia sockpuppeted to evade discovery of prior edits, including to political articles, where he was known to have a conflicting POV". This may sound rather multi-faceted, until you consider that actually all those elements need to be there before you have something newsworthy, and that beyond that there's pretty much nothing (which is why some editors are unwisely dismissing it as a "storm in a teacup"). I don't believe it's premature to reach this conclusion, because I can't see how any future sources are going to change the overall shape of the story, even if they add more specific details. As for the sources so far, we know they contain utter rubbish - see JN466's post above. This is one of the rare cases where the citable sources we are relying on contain clear and vital errors - unfortunately we have access to information that confirms this, but aren't allowed to cite it, so the situation is messy. This also raises my fears of BLP issues - Mr Boothroyd is accused, in the sources that we actually link to (and the fact we are citing them indicates our endorsement of them as valid sources!) of things we know to be untrue! There is a strong chance of erroneous information being included in the article, albeit correctly cited, by an editor who has not had the benefit of JN466's input. I don't think it's wise to dismiss the the "delete" option as mere "knee-jerking", there are definitely valid concerns here.TheGrappler (talk) 02:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Btw, on a very quick detour from the discussion, how was it found out that Blacketer and Fys were run by the same person? OpenSeven (talk) 22:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Utter non-event - just look at the last paragraph "All this stuff happened although even the Daily Mail admits that ... er, actually nothing interesting really happened". If this does have a place, it's Wikinews. In reality, it doesn't. Black Kite 22:36, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge, do not delete Needs to be included in the encyclopedia. The calls for censorship are troubling, especially in this case of abuse and political bias by an Arbcom member. This incident certainly seems like the tip of the iceberg of what is a major censorship and bias problem on Wikipedia as the camping out on Obama articles by POV pushers demonstrates. Arbcom seems to be infected by this sickness and trying to sweep it under the rug isn't going to help alleviate the problem. If we're going to continue to be a partisan website that promotes leftist politicians I think we should disclose that. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • CoM, I wouldn't really call it censorship, and I wouldn't call Sam Blacketer's editing POV-pushing. Did you check out Jayen466's message above, or the related thread on AN (here)? Sam Blacketer was actually reverting vandalism on his political opponent's WP article...if anything, that's actually kind of classy. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 01:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break 1

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"All the sources in the world couldn't save it." And there you have it folks. This isn't about sources or notability at all. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Giants27 isn't the nominator. Nathan T 00:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Essjay wasn't a labour politician. Was there an Essjay article before his controversy broke? Because there was one for this politician. We thought it was just fine to have an article on him until he engaged in inappropriate and policy violating behavior. Does the notnews policy indicate that people become non-notable right after they're caught acting inappropriately and it's widely reported on in reliable media? I'd like to see that policy page. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment So far I see 4 people above who've !voted delete, but in their comments talk about merging. Another 2 have added their deletes based the people who've mixed delete and merge. I think we need to be clear. If you believe it should be deleted say delete. If you think it should be merged, say merge.--Cube lurker (talk) 01:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment That's a very good point but probably not necessarily a contradiction - I'm one of the people I suspect you're picking out, and I believe strongly in deleting this article. And indeed also that at least a great bulk of the current content should be deleted. The fact that I do believe that this incident should be covered in a paragraph or so of a more integrated article, either from a reduced version of what is currently on the page or as a "start from scratch", does not mean my !vote of delete should be interpreted as a !vote for merge. If anything it's a !vote for "delete this article, cover it somewhere else but certainly not with the current text as it stands, and what portion of the current text survives or whether it is completely rewritten is something I don't give an airborne whippet about". Your point that we need clarity here is a good one and I think actually the AFD keep/merge/delete !voting system is part of a long-standing problem - I've seen plenty of discussions where the keeps were in a small minority, and the rest of the !votes were between "delete" and "rewrite this and merge it into X" yet it got closed as a no consensus and therefore a default keep, even though there was consensus that no article should exist at that title. Since keeping here is for me is the worst of all three options, I am going to put "delete" in bold case! The fact that I also state that I think the content could be covered elsewhere in better context, and that I don't really mind whether this article's current text is used as the basis for that coverage, should in no way allow my comment to be interpreted as "really means merge, so when assessing !voting proportions, notch this up as a merge and therefore count it against consensus to delete". I hope this clarifies things a little? I suspect a similar logic may also work for some of the other contributors who wrote delete but mentioned merger (if any of them would care to comment, I'd be interested to see if my guess is correct - please do reply!). I think if somebody includes "delete" in bold, especially someone who knows the system, it's an indication that their main priority is the deletion of the article. I guess the exception is if their comment explicitly states that they want the article history preserved and the current material simply moved into another article, in which case it seems they have indeed !misvoted. I can see no delete !vote here that falls into that category though. TheGrappler (talk) 01:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Minor news story and minor scandal. Not notable. AniMatedraw 01:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete It might be a matter for WP:AN/I, but not one for mainspace. PhGustaf (talk) 01:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge — How about we create a page for the different notable (read: sufficiently documented by the press and other external sources) incidents of politically motivated edits that have been made to Wikipedia—similar to USA Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia, maybe Edits by political figures to Wikipedia?—and merge all the related articles to that page? Each isolated incident of insertion of political disinformation probably isn't notable by itself, and the sources out there don't cut it. But what about, say, two sources for a section on a page? I'm just throwing the idea out there. —Animum (talk) 02:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep That the behind-the-scenes goings on and apparent corruption by members of our most-trusted body within Wikipedia is making it to newspapers across the globe is the clearest evidence of notability. By pushing to deleting it, we at Wikipedia are effectively guilty of covering this up and sweeping it under the rug, the last thing that we should ever be doing. Alansohn (talk) 02:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy delete. I am not sure exactly per what policy; per WP:IAR if nothing else really fits. We all know (unless we choose to ignore it) that the newspapers are inflating a non-event due to the Register's hoax that Sam's deletion of picture vandalism on a political opponent's article was something sinister. The alternative to deletion of the article would be some creative new way of dealing with the situation when "reliable sources" are obviously much less reliable than Wikipedia's collective knowledge about a situation. E.g. the Wikimedia Foundation or Jimbo Wales might decide to release a statement that clarifies what really happened, which could then be cited in the article. Unless and until that happens, the article needs to be deleted for lack of reliable sources. --Hans Adler (talk) 02:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy is unrealistic and no longer necessary due to improvements. I find Thatcher's arguments convincing, changing to vomit. --Hans Adler (talk) 19:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To explain the problem: The great danger with this article is that while it simply parrots what the press says, the press, notoriously not understanding our internal processes, will of course read it as confirmation by Wikipedia that everything is as described in the article. The next step might well be a major paper reporting that "Wikipedia confirms [in the article under discussion] that Boothroyd is accused of replacing his opponent's photo by a less favourable one". Then this article might report this as "According to Wikipedia, Boothroyd is accused of replacing his opponent's photo by a less favourable one". When some journalist misunderstands this as "Wikipedia released a statement that...", this might again be taken up in the article. Sooner or later we need to break this vicious circle. I would say, the right moment is now. --Hans Adler (talk) 02:34, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am in complete agreement that we have a real problem here, stemming from the fact that our self-knowledge exceeds the reliability of sources, and with your proposal that we need a more systematic approach to this in future. There are alternatives to simply parroting the press - for instance, we could cut the article down, possibly move it to another place in Wikipedia (e.g. as a subsection or paragraph in another article), and only include and cite the parts of the story that we know to be true - effectively distorting what the press say, in such a way as to leave only the stuff that is actually correct. Yet since the press have made serious mistakes here (see JN466's comment), I am afraid that even referencing the bits which are true by citing the press stories is dangerous - as it seems to endorse (referencing a source seems to be implictly indicate that we believe it's reliable!) an article that we know contains serious problems. And those problems have BLP implications in this case. I'm not convinced that IAR is the correct response to this problem, however your comment is probably the first one that really gets to the heart of the absurdity of the actual Wikipedia goings-on, the press reporting of them, the ensuing Wikipedia article, and now the Wikipedia goings-on to work out what to do about the article...TheGrappler (talk) 03:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break 2

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  • Delete not enough sources to overcome the BLP concern. If he was dead, then perhaps. However, BLP is in full force. I would suggest that at least coverage in five different papers would be a minimum required before this is even notable enough to consider a page on the matter. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He's been covered in various capacities in way more than 5 papers. Most of these voters don't seem to understand that we've long had an article on this subject and he's been in the news repeatedly and is an author and has some notability for his corporate activities (unless that's another person of the same name?). And now we have over a week of very substantial coverage on top of that. And make no mistake, Wikipedia is a major information source, so a politician engaging in subterfuge and inappropriate conflicts of interest while serving at the highest editorial levels as a judge and jury IS a major story in and of itself. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A subject wishing not to have an article should always be given preference to deletion. The failed deletion before was a mockery of the system. And substantial coverage? Not at all. It is mostly the same stuff with little new. The articles below don't show anything that reinforces, especially with their lack of a real coverage used. There needs to be at least five original sources on this controversy to even -consider- that it is worth while enough with BLP. Do you have no respect for BLP by chance? I would hope that you would, and if you do, then you wouldn't pursue this matter. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Putting the lie to the idea that there aren't sources isn't hard. Someone said there needed to be 5. Well here you go:
  • 1) [22] Fox News
  • 2) [23] The Guardian
  • 3) Time/CNN [24]
  • 4) [25] The Independent
  • 5)The Argus [26]
  • 6) Wood and Vale [27]
  • 7)Westminster’s Icelandic folly - PressDisplay.com - Oct 13, 2008 has a story on him.
  • 8) Westminster affordable housing row

PlanningResource - PlanningResource (subscription) - Oct 23, 2008 Labour member of the committee Cllr David Boothroyd, has branded the move as “a smash and grab raid”. He said: "So many people are waiting for transfer to a ...

  • 9) Local elections good for gay Labour

PinkNews.co.uk - May 5, 2006 Gay councillors, Matt Cooke and Alan Dobbie held seats in Labour controlled Haringey and David Boothroyd held his in Westminster.

  • 10) And then of course there's the very substantial coverage AFTER his latest controversy [28], [29] Daily Mail
  • 11) The Register [30]

And then there are other stories that I'm not sure are related. There are several tech stories. Is he David Boothroyd, Contributing Editor to Vision Systems Design? Does he write on wireless standards?

That's just a quick Google News search. I understand he's also an author. So I presume there's lots more on Google Books. ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bigging him up as a "politician" is probably overdoing it. To be fair he's just a local councillor, and if I recall correctly formerly worked as a parliamentary researcher. Any material about his existence as a local councillor is not especially relevant to this discussion. I believe there are 20,000 local councillors in England! Moreover, reliable sources could be found (council websites, local newspapers) to write referenced articles on all of them! Yet this is certainly not the level of politics at which it's worth having articles for people. In fact it's not really the level of politics at which it's worth calling participants "politicians", unless you're trying to make them sound important and therefore raise the "conspiracy" level. This man is not a key player in Labour politics. He's not even a marginal player in Labour politics. I'm not saying the sources you pulled up about his councillor days are not citable, but where would you cite them? Clearly they do not make the difference between Sam Blacketer controversy being a viable or non-viable article. They might belong in the article David Boothroyd but that has been deleted at AFD, and again the fact we have sources describing his work as a councillor does not suddenly render that article viable either (reliable, multiple sources about councillors and their work would exist for 20,000 or so people, but we would AFD such articles without any hesitation; we even AFD those people who reach the stage above where this guy is, which is being prospective parliamentary or assembly candidates, in a pretty quickfire way). Aside from the stuff about his time as a councillor, we know (see Hans Adler and JN466) that the Register source - and then the newspaper articles that picked that story up and ran with it (and it doesn't matter if 200 newspapers in 50 countries do just that, it's basically just one story getting repeated again and again) - are deeply flawed. Of course, lots of coverage indicates that this story is notable, but just because a news story is notable doesn't mean it needs a standalone article - it is perfectly reasonable to give it a couple of lines, in context, in another article. See WP:NOTNEWS and WP:RECENTISM. In a similar vein, calling Mr Boothroyd an "author" sounds an attempt to give him a CV-boost. He's certainly had a book published - without disparaging Mr Boothroyd in the least, I seem to recall it was not a particularly important or well-selling one, that listed historical British political parties, and it certainly falls below the "important as an average cookbook" test of notability. If it had been any more notable than that, his article would have survived AFD. To be fair I think you can make a borderline case for the article David Boothroyd being notable enough to keep, but most of the sources you identified would be relevant for that article and not Sam Blacketer controversy - I wonder if you're fighting the wrong AFD? TheGrappler (talk) 04:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@ChildofMidnight: Five sources does not notability make. (Ten doesn't, either.) Not automatically, at least. It all depends on what the sources have to say...and what they have to say does not appear to be enough (for reasons I and some other editors gave above) to demonstrate that this "controversy" is notable. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 05:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I already commented on how many of those sources just quote his opinion as a member of the Westminster Council. Those sources are about controversial decisions that he didn't made, and they are definitely not about him. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another source appeared a few hours ago: [31] OpenSeven (talk) 10:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete OK, here's my reasoning. There may be enough sources developing for adding this material to Criticism of Wikipedia, but I don't see enough here at this point in time for this particular article. (per: WP:NAVEL aka SELF or SELFREF). I'm not sure whether there is even enough here for a viable WP:BLP as a David Boothroyd, but that may change in time as this current event progresses. I think at the moment - WP:BLP1E has to be something that needs to be considered. I'm not suggesting that we sweep anything under the rug, but rather suggesting that we don't "make" the news - we "report" items in historical context, and in an encyclopedic fashion. This just appears to be very tabloidish at the moment, I suggest we avoid the tendency to make our own news. — Ched :  ?  11:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    BLP1E has been applied here. This is not a BLP, rather it is an article on the event. 1E can't be invoked on an event article. لennavecia 12:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:COATRACK definitely suggests that this is a BLP. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "This is not a BLP, rather it is an article on the event" - really the thing that matters is the content of the article though, not the title. This is one event and it concerns a person so BLP concerns are legitimate. BLP concerns can never be solved just by giving the article a new title and saying "oh, it's ok, it's not a biography any more, it's actually about the one event that the biography was about, with the information about the person as background". The basic argument is 1E + COATRACK = BLP1E - even if in its current form the article is pretty "clean", we know we are linking to sources that are rubbish and accuse Mr Boothroyd of things we know to be untrue (is this a BLP violation in itself?). TheGrappler (talk) 16:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Ottava and TheGrappler: I didn't say BLP didn't apply. I said BLP1E doesn't apply, and can't. BLP1E is for biographies of people notable for only one event. It suggests instead having an article on the event. Thus, as this is an article on the event, BLP1E cannot apply. Now, as far as the notability of the event or any BLP concerns within the article, that's completely different. لennavecia 16:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as agitprop — this is wiki-drama leaking into article space. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per the various points raised above - basically, nothing notable here. Eusebeus (talk) 13:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break 3

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  • Merge To either Wikipedia (today) or to David Boothroyd as a small section/single sentence there should that article's draft at User talk:JoshuaZ/David Boothroyd prove notable. If by some unlikely event that this "takes off" further in the press, it can be always spun out later. rootology (C)(T) 13:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Wikipedia" might not be the best article - I'm not sure this event is notable enough in the history of Wikipedia, perhaps "Criticism of Wikipeda" would be more relevant? When you say "take off" - what do we actually need to happen? The main story could be recycled round dozens of newspapers, without really adding anything to the available content. Moreover we know that the current sources are deeply flawed (see JN466's post) so repetition of incorrect material in the press wouldn't be particularly helpful. If we do merge it somewhere, do we know what we intend to source the relevant section/sentence to? TheGrappler (talk) 16:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge An interesting case, to say the least. By WP:GNG standards, I believe the controversy is notable, in view of the "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". However, I do not feel the incident is notable enough for its own article. Suggest Criticism of Wikipedia and/or David Boothroyd (if recreated, a movement to do so does exist) as appropriate places to merge to. AdmiralKolchak (talk) 14:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge per Rootology. --John (talk) 15:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Wikipedia (or another suitable target, if there is one). I don't see enough for a standalone article. LadyofShalott 15:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep covered by reliable sources and my understanding is that couple more papers are going to cover it. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are you aware that the "reliable sources" get many of the fundamental facts wrong, and have copied the same errors, one from the other? It's an interesting philosophical dilemma. Looking at how far these articles are from the truth, it is safe to say we probably have lots of articles on controversial celebrities etc. that cite wildly inaccurate facts just because they appeared in "reliable sources". Are we prepared to cite such inaccurate reports when they concern our own community? In my view, this train wreck of reporting illustrates a fundamental problem with journalistic sources: it shows what happens when a saleable frame or meme enters the journalistic arena. It acquires a life of its own, a life that is completely divorced from the facts. Here is the Italian news article someone linked above, in its Babelfish translation. The Italian publication actually shows the picture that Sam Blacketer restored, but says in the text that he is the one accused of trying to replace it with an "anything but thrilling image". Balderdash! All of this comes courtesy of Cade Metz. And btw, Sam discontinued the other account names in 2007 [32][33] – well before he became an arbitrator. The reports claiming that an arbitrator was caught sockpuppeteering are wrong. Yes, Sam had edited under different user names in the past. He then started the Sam Blacketer account, and before he became an arbitrator, stopped using the other accounts, and turned into an exemplary editor and arbitrator who since gaining his arbitrator seat has only edited the David Cameron article to revert vandalism, as far as I can see from the page history. That's the "regular alterations" referred to in the media! These are some of the inaccuracies in the article that cannot be put right without adding WP:Original research. Perhaps I'll write a Wikinews article. :) JN466 16:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sugesting WP:V be rewritten or removed as official policy? Not sure where we go once we walk that path.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jayen is exactly not suggesting this. There is nothing in WP:V that would force us to lie just because the lie is "verifiable". The simple solution is not to use the sources that we know to be wrong, even if they would otherwise pass WP:RS. But then we have no sources left, which is why this article needs to be deleted. And pronto, because we are currently knowingly libelling David Boothroyd. (The press is doing it unwittingly.) --Hans Adler (talk) 23:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:PSTS: Wikipedia's logs here are a primary source which we can reasonably draw on. Disembrangler (talk) 20:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This event is not important enough to merit inclusion Captain panda 16:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The global coverage in major newspapers indicates that the nomination's assertion that this is a "non-event" is false. The "Wikipedia community" is just about everyone who uses the internet so, if the article seems "unintelligible", we should just improve it in accordance with our editing policy. Deletion is not appropriate, especially as Wikipedia is not censored. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The effort on the part of the editor who authored the article is appreciated, but the event is currently not notable enough to warrant an article. AGK 17:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - navalgazing. Nobody in the real world is interested in this tempest in a teapot, except for Wikipedia editors and our detractors. Seriously: when the Wikipedia archive is found in 5000 years and translated into NuInglish, will the people reading give a flying fuck about this tiny non-event? How about in 100 years? How about in a year? How about in a month? Nope. ➲ redvers throwing my arms around Paris 17:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per global newscoverage. Unfortunate that this means reinforcing the press, but we can't have it both ways. We either stick to our policies or we don't. Agathoclea (talk) 17:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as this has spread well beyond the "walls" of Wikipedia, and has become notable in its own right. Boothroyd/Blacketer has stained Wikipedia's reputation in a real world-notable way. The article should stay. Unitanode 18:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep for now. Seems like the ongoing incident is at minimum notable. We may need to merge this into an article on Boothroyd eventually if the new versions of that are kept. But it seems like this is an internationally reported incident so the coverage here at minimum seems appropriate. Note that there are now non-English reports on this matter. See for example [34]. JoshuaZ (talk) 18:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep - the idea that this is unrefable and uninteresting is clearly wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 19:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC) Changed to reluctant delete, on the grounds that: reading through this, it seems fairly clear that if this article is kept, people are (foolishly) going to want to fill it with incorrect but verifiable content from newspapers that have got the wrong end of the stick, inctead of verifiable truth from our own archives. That would be (a) stupid and (b) a source of endless edit wars William M. Connolley (talk) 21:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Not an internal matter at all, significant outside coverage, reliable sources. Ed Fitzgerald t / c 19:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: "Reliable" sources whose accounts are wrong on almost every point. I know ... verifiability, not truth ... That is all very well as long as the article is about someone else ;) Is it really compatible with WP:BLP to have an article full of stuff which we know and can prove to be wrong, just by referring to our own archives? I have checked every edit Sam made to David Cameron going back to December 2007, when he became an arbitrator. Here is the edit apparently mentioned in the Daily Mail, where the Mail says he "tried to remove a reference to the Tories having a 'consistent' lead in the polls.". This is the only time I found Sam actually added content, rather than reverting vandals, since December 2007. Now, if you look at this edit, you will find that what he took out was running commentary on 2008 opinion poll results, cited to a 2007 (!) Reuters article http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL1310900320071013?sp=true – material which he replaced with cited material which noted that Cameron had appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, and was said by the Daily Mail to have been presented to the world as Britain's "Prime Minister in waiting". And Sam inserted the information that the Tories were "consistently" ahead. Some Labour activist! Sam actually put in the information these "reliable sources" accuse him of having taken out, just like he took out the unflattering attack picture these sources accuse him of having put in! Perhaps they don't know that if you look at a diff, it's the right side that has the new text, or that red text is text added, rather than deleted. What do I know. Our article here, citing the Daily Mail, says that Sam was "trying to adjust the description of the Conservative Party's lead in opinion polls over the Labour Party." This stupid innuendo and twisting of facts is unworthy of an encyclopedia, and it is unworthy of our project. JN466 22:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Either WP:V matters, or it doesn't. Either it applies, or it doesn't. As you yourself pointed out, it's what's verifiable that matters. Much of the last 2/3 of your comment is simply original research and is prohibited, as I read policy. Unitanode 23:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete. Non-event. It shows the frustration of wikipedia editors who have reinvented themselves through this internet site. Completely unsuitable for any kind of encyclopedia. Mathsci (talk) 23:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per pretty much every other rationale above. — Hex (❝?!❞) 00:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Significant news coverage and increasing. Cheers! Scapler (talk) 00:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article should not have been created and should be deleted. A single minor event in the newspapers does not warrant an article, regardless whether the event is related to wikipedia. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Have you read the comments here? This isn't a "single minor event in the newspapers" or anything even resembling that phraseology. This "event" has been well-covered in numerous, reliable sources. It's a notable controversy, to be certain. Unitanode 02:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, I have read the comments here. Simply because something appears in newspapers does not mean it is an appropriate topic for an article. In particular, we should avoid creating articles for what is clearly a "15 minutes of fame" situation, especially BLP articles. See WP:BLP1E. As I said, I don't think the relationship to wikipedia is important; this general class of articles should be avoided. We are not wikinews. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break 4

edit
  • Delete. While the publications used for sources are normally assumed to be sufficiently reliable to be used in Wikipedia, we know that these particular stories are not in fact reliable sources. Let's take a look at this in six months and decide if it's really notable or not.--ragesoss (talk) 03:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. We are here to provide an educational resource. Nobody is going to come away better-educated from reading an article that, as we know, is based on falsehoods. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC). Note: Still thinking "delete" after re-reading this article just now. Not only is this a news incident, it really is a non-event. The only reason we have secondary sources at all is that certain journalists didn't have their facts straight when they decided what story they'd spend their time on that day. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Wikipedia is not the news. Per Mathsci. Stifle (talk) 09:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. He's a Politician, it's reached mainstream news. sicaruma | contribs 09:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Just to be clear, the picture Sam took out, saying he preferred one "not carrying saintly overtones", looked like this. And for that he gets accused by the international media of having altered David Cameron's entry to suit his political agenda, and we are supposed to write an article implying that he did that? It is not compatible with WP:BLP to include derogatory information that is verifiably false. JN466 10:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, we are to write that the source implies that. It's not possible for us to judge for what reasons another editor edits an article. Maybe he did want to do it to suit his political agenda? Maybe he didn't? How are we to know? Saying that it's "verifiably false" is the same as saying that it's "verifiably true" - something that cannot be done as noone can read his mind to determine the truth. Seeing that it's impossible to say for what reasons Sam edited the article (and I assume he really did it because the image really looks like David Cameron has a halo, no doubt about that), we have to write what we can verify: That source XY implies this. Not that it's true. It's the same with every BLP after all, we just cannot know why people act a certain way. Regards SoWhy 10:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Have you looked at the picture with the halo effect that Sam took out? You can see the halo effect here. Are you seriously suggesting taking out such a picture might have served a political agenda? JN466 11:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have seen the picture. And I agree (as I wrote above) that it's not an appropriate picture for Wikipedia. My point is solely that even although this might be the most obvious reason for that edit, we cannot say that we know that Sam did it for those reasons (alone). And the article (at least at the moment) does not claim he did it for political reasons, just that some people accuse him of that. And as unfortunate as one might think that is, that is in fact true. People do accuse him of that. I do not see a problem in writing about well-sourced accusations - we do it all the time in articles about people who are accused to have committed a crime. I know it's not the same but the point is this: Being accused is not the same as being guilty of something and the article does not say that he is guilty. Regards SoWhy 12:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The deletion reasons are unconvincing. The deletion of the parent article does not affect this article the slightest.Many articles are unintelligible for people outside specific areas of interest but that in itself does not make it a good reason for deletion. Essjay controversy proves that it is in fact possible to write an article about a Wikipedia-related event based on external sources that is intelligible for people outside this community. Problems that the article might have in that regard can be solved via simple editing and while I understand the buzz the article creates here, we should apply our policies to all articles no matter the content. The article is sourced to multiple reliable sources (whether they got their facts right is not our concern, remember WP:V: Verifiability, not truth) establishing notability. Per WP:BLP1E this is not an article about the person but about the event. No other policy-backed reasons have been mentioned (NOTNEWS gets thrown around but this has continued for multiple weeks now). Regards SoWhy 10:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As Hans Adler has remarked that my line about WP:V not being about truth is "immature" and "problematic", I want to expand on that to clarify (copied from here): My point was that it's impossible for people at an AFD to know the "truth" about things. For all we know, the source could be correct as well as it's probably not. But since it's impossible to read Sam's mind and understand, why he did the edit in question, we have no choice but to write what reliable sources report - but making sure that the article reflects that this really is only what the source thinks, not what is true. And the article does just that, using the wording "...is accused of...". I see no problem in reporting in line with WP:V that a reliable source makes such an accusation. The article does not depict it as a fact. Regards SoWhy 10:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unless the reader can see the halo effect in the picture that Sam took out, the information that Sam preferred a picture without "saintly overtones" will always be grossly misleading. Again, you can see the halo effect here. Is it really so difficult to understand why Sam, or any decent Wikipedian, for that matter, would take such a picture out of a prominent BLP? Does it really require any speculation on motives? JN466 11:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) We are talking about replacing this silly picture by this. It doesn't take mind reading powers to see that describing this as "[e]dits Boothroyd is accused of undertaking include changing a picture of David Cameron, leader of the Labour Party's rival Conservative Party on the relevant Wikipedia article to one 'not carrying saintly overtones'" is deeply unfair. If we can't find sources that get this right we have to shut up rather than libel a colleague and try to make the insane media campagaign against him even worse.
This affair is getting sillier and siller. I just discovered that someone had added the claim of an Indian source that Boothroyd had made "many unfavourable" "alterations" to Cameron's article. The same editor forgot to also add the "information" that this local councillor is a "labour leader". [35] It's disgusting to watch how this site is slowly being taken over by extremists who read our policies as forbidding editorial discretion. The technical term for writing something that looks like an encyclopedia but only follows its arcane internal rules instead of trying to get the facts right is bullshitting. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If the article is kept, perhaps it could show the two images in a sort of "before and after". LadyofShalott 12:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The image Sam took out was deleted a couple of weeks ago. I made an Undelete request, but it can't be restored. JN466 14:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC) Update: actually, for the moment, it has been restored, and is shown below left. JN466 14:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No longer. Stifle removed it citing a formal reason. [36] --Hans Adler (talk) 16:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am sure Stifle is correct. However, I found the site the image came from this morning. Ironically enough, it originates from a blog on the Daily Mail website: [37] JN466 11:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As for this not being an article about the person, but about the event, note that WP:BLP "applies equally to biographies of living persons and to biographical material about living persons on other pages" and requires us to exercise great care in sourcing negative material about living persons. In particular, "Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should not be used". These articles have been shown to be questionable, and of dubious encyclopedic value. JN466 10:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, I would never contest this. I mentioned WP:BLP1E which just says that articles should be about the event if the person is otherwise non-notable. WP:BLP talks about "questionable sources or sources of dubious value" - but reliable sources are per definition not such sources. Yes, there is argument here that they are not reliable because they disagree with what people here know as facts. But unfortunately consensus was usually that personal knowledge in an article would constitute original research and cannot be used to remove verifiable information sourced to reliable sources. Regards SoWhy 10:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Personal knowledge shared by all editors involved can of course be used to inform editorial discretion, which may then lead to a decision to delete a borderline article to prevent further damage. It's disingenuous of you to claim that we absolutely must parrot lies as if they are true, in a context where people look at what we are reporting under the assumption that they get our POV from us, when there is a very simple alternative: To shut up. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I never claimed that we must parrot lies. "Lie" requires knowledge that we simply do not have (i.e. what Sam Blacketer thought when he made those edits) and the article just says what he is accused of, not how and why he acted in a certain way. And I never said that I think this is correct or incorrect. I just pointed out what consensus was so far as far as I can see and I've never seen anyone successfully gain consensus to remove a reliably sourced information based on their personal knowledge. Regards SoWhy 12:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Knowledge we don't have? You are being disingenuous or very, very silly. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to be neither. I'm merely pointing out that you or anyone else cannot know what Sam Blacketer thought when he made those edits. Unless you want to claim that you in fact can read his mind and assure us what he thought in that moment, all we have are assumptions. It might be logical and obvious for you or me to assume that he could not have had any other reason for these edits than removing an inappropriate image but we don't know that. The fact that some people here and in reliable sources are accusing him otherwise shows that this assumption, while logical to you or me, is not the one everyone makes and it's usually incorrect to say "this is the Truth™ and everyone who sees it different is lying". I tried to see the POV of those critical to Sam Blacketer's behaviour, not to state what is "truth" or "lies". I will not claim to know it. Regards SoWhy 13:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I agree with Ragesoss and per my comments at the Boothroyd userspace rewrite - the Register and the Mail's articles cannot be considered reliable in this case. I would however agree with a Merge to any future Boothroyd article if reliable sources can be found for both that subject and this controversy. Otherwise I suggest the info from the New Zealand Herald be merged with Criticism of Wikipedia--Cailil talk 15:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - After a great deal of consideration, and reading over all the comments here, I believe this article should be deleted. It's a news piece, not an encyclopedic article. The sources have not reached accurate conclusions, and while I am normally one to push the Verifiability, not truth thing, when BLP is involved, it's no good. Internal sources and other information available to us on the project contradict the conclusions drawn in the sources. It's irresponsible of us to report on what sources are claiming when we know it's false. لennavecia 16:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • In cases such as this I think it is more than reasonable to draw on WP's logs as a primary source. Disembrangler (talk) 20:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've come to the same conclusion. As per WP:WELLKNOWN, a subsection of WP:BLP policy, we are permitted to access primary sources that have previously been referenced in secondary sources, to fill in lacunae in secondary-source reporting. Wikipedia here is a public primary source being reported on in secondary sources, and thus descriptive statements can be made about its content. I've edited the article accordingly, so it bears at least a resemblance to the truth while it exists. The attack picture that Sam Blacketer took out of the article has licensing problems, as such pictures usually do; but in my view the picture is crucial to giving an accurate account of what happened. I would argue it should be kept on a fair-use or, if need be, WP:IAR basis to illustrate this specific controversy for as long as we have coverage of the controversy in our pages. JN466 21:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • That's not my point. I believe your rewrite is good, and I also believe the image is crucial to maintaining NPOV. However, what made this story newsworthy was the sensationalistic nature of the story. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, the media got it all wrong. So, basically, in my view, the article is based on a non-notable event that the media used as a way to slander a libel a living person. So that's what we're detailing. I'd like to know what Sam thinks. If he's commented, I've missed it. On one hand, this could serve to clear up the issues, as I don't believe any of these stupid "news" sources have corrected their false claims, but at the same time, I don't know that such an article is appropriate. So, I suppose at this point, I remain in the delete camp unless Sam prefers it be kept. لennavecia 22:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Wide coverage makes this clearly notable, just like the Essjay controversy which survived two VFDs under similar arguments. --Falcorian (talk) 19:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or merge to David Boothroyd. Alternatively, turn it into a Wikipedia essay (Wikipedia:Sam Blacketer controversy), if people think this recording of where reporting of the controversy has gone wrong needs to be kept somewhere. Keep. On reflection, with improvements made to the article and additional sources given, it doesn't merit deletion on grounds of notability; and no other valid grounds have been given. We can draw on WP logs as a primary source to incorporate both descriptive facts of what actually was done, as well as what was reported, and allow the two to conflict without causing heads or policies to explode. The present article does that. A merge to David Boothroyd would be an option, if sufficient sources could be found to justify the latter's notability, whilst respecting WP:BLP1E.Oh I don't know, it is a bit WP:NOTNEWS really. If we could transwiki to Wikinews I'd suggest that. Perhaps writing a new article there would be a solution. Rd232/Disembrangler (talk) 20:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • BLP in general suggests that there is not enough for such a page. WP:BLP - "This policy applies equally to biographies of living persons and to biographical material about living persons on other pages." and "We must get the article right.[1] Be very firm about the use of high quality references." The references from Wikipedia contradict the references from other sources. Therefore, there are no "high quality" references. So, you cannot justify as per BLP. This was pointed out many times above, so your statement that "no other valid grounds have been given" is very wrong. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:20, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • It is in the media - which satisfies notability. The media references are high quality for the fact that there is media coverage. And we can use WP logs as primary sources to illustrate errors in the media coverage - which satisfies BLP (accuracy). Disembrangler (talk) 16:07, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • BLP's notability standards are higher than notability standards. As it states "We must get the article right.", and sources proven to be inaccurate cannot be used as reliable sources in a BLP. The sources were proven inaccurate. Therefore, there is no reliable third party sources to determine notability. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Sources are not black-and-white reliable/unreliable. Sources may be reliable for some things but not others; see WP:RSN. In any case factual inaccuracy of sources doesn't wipe those sources off the planet - that coverage, erroneous or not, still exists, and its contribution to notability remains. Disembrangler (talk) 06:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • WP:BLP makes it 100% clear that in BLPs, sources are black and white reliable or unreliable. Please read BLP before commenting. This has been stated over and over, and your comments are inappropriate. We cannot override BLP. It is a legal and ethical issue. It is apparent that you missed the blatant statement at the top of BLP: "use of high quality references." Any inaccuracy found makes the sources unreliable according to BLP. They cannot be used. You are 100% wrong and that is blatant from our policies. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:48, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                • It does no such thing. Any particular claims need to be backed by high-quality sources, but the notability remains because the issue has been covered in multiple national-level media. The fact that they made mistakes (which we can correct using primary sources) doesn't unprint those articles. Disembrangler (talk) 16:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete per nomOo7565 (talk) 20:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or merge some info to Criticism of Wikipedia or similar article, provided it is balanced. This is a clear case where WP:Ignore all rules applies. WP:V would suggest that the event is reliably sourced, but this is a unique situation where our own archives prove that almost all these media reports are riddled with incorrect information. Until a balanced article can be written, especially on a subject of marginal notability, it should not exist. -RunningOnBrains(talk page) 20:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or failing that, merge the salient points to an appropriate article. Given the extended international coverage, even by such publications as the Corriere della Sera ([38]), our notability standards are certainly met. Yes, the coverage may be wrong, but WP:V's instruction to aim for "verifiability, not truth" does not contain an exception for issues about which we assume to know the (sadly unverifiable) truth, such as Wikipedia-related issues.  Sandstein  21:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • What is astonishing to me is how many people are willing to simply ignore both WP:V and WP:OR, simply because the original research comes from Wikipedia itself. Unitanode 22:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • It is not original research. It is primary sourcing. There is a difference. And Wikipedia -is- a reliable source on actions at Wikipedia, hence ArbCom can use diffs and the rest to determine appropriateness of rulings. So, information found on Wikipedia about actions on Wikipedia are enough to determine that the sources, if they contradict it, are unreliable. The same is a source saying that a bluebird is naturally red when all pictures of the bluebird shows that it is, indeed, blue. The Reliable Sources noticeboard look at credibility of reporting, especially when there is direct evidence that there is a mistake. Plus, newspapers can take up to a month to make corrections, if they even bother. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Can anyone else make any sense out of what Ottava Rima just typed? "It is not original research. It is primary sourcing." According to what I understand, the definition of original research is using primary sources instead of secondary ones. What you wrote makes no sense at all, and is not a justification for deleting this article in any way. Unitanode 00:02, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • I detect shortcutitis (citing shortcuts without actually reading the relevant policy). Try the relevant subsection of WP:OR, which is WP:PSTS. Primary sources are sometimes permissible. Disembrangler (talk) 00:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
              • I hardly know as many "shortcuts" as you do. I stumbled into this imbroglio, and am regretting every participating. Even still, a quote from your linked shortcut (does WP:IRONY, exist): "All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." The relevance of this quote should be self-evident. Unitanode 00:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                • The bit I was hoping you'd take away from PSTS was "Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge." WP logs can therefore certainly be used in this way to back up the simple factual claims people have made about what actually happened vs what newspapers reported. Disembrangler (talk) 09:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Original Research is not primary sourcing, and primary sourcing is not original research. Original research is to determine what is not readily available from a source of information. If an author writes a book, then you can discuss what the book says without saying what someone else claims the book says. Please look up the definition of "original". A "primary" source would not be original. This is readily apparent from actually reading WP:OR. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • To quote: "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article about it." That sounds like "don't use primary sources" to me. Reliable, third-party sources have been found here. We don't like their interpretation of the facts, so we want to delete the article? That makes no sense. Unitanode 00:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
              • Obviously, people applied the quote to why this should be deleted. The primary sources contradict the third party sources, thus making them unreliable. It has nothing to do with "not using primary sources". Primary sources are a source, but not a justification for notability. Don't dare confuse notability with verification. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What does "Americentrism" have to do either with the incident or the article? The subject is British? Nathan T 03:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely my point - if the subject was an American politician and lobbyist then there would be no question that we'd keep this article. TheGoodLocust (talk) 04:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Baseless argument, and surely not a reason to keep. لennavecia 18:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Jayen466 has substantially improved the article using the primary sources that have already been mentioned in the press reports. The discussion up to around 15:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC) was essentially about this version of the article: [39] Participants since around 19:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC) are probably talking about this version: [40]. --Hans Adler (talk) 00:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment about timing. The user in question is planning to undergo RfA for re-approval in a few days, on June 15. The presence or absence of this article may affect that RfA, and the RfA may affect the article. I don't see any way around that, and either keeping or deleting the article will have consequences.   Will Beback  talk  01:05, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, subject of coverage in multiple secondary sources including Corriere della Sera [41], The Register [42], New Zealand Herald [43], Daily Mail [44], Sify [45], The Independent [46]. Cirt (talk) 03:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note, coverage in a few sources is not enough to override BLP concerns, especially with their proven unreliability. You would need to come up with a different reason. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Note, there are more than "a few sources" covering this, and my reason is WP:NOTE. Cirt (talk) 02:10, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Then your reason is inadequate, since WP:NOTE depends, in this case, on adequate coverage in reliable sources — and not just "normally reliable" sources, but sources we have no reason to believe are unreliable in this particular case. When the sources have been proven wrong on the very basis of the subject's notability itself (that is, the newspaper articles are clearly INaccurate on crucial points related to how important the story is), then they aren't reliable by any reasonable definition. There are no reliable sources in the article, and none can be found. Therefore there is no notability, and your reason to keep has vanished. If, somehow, the sources were thought to be adequate, even if proven wrong, then WP:IAR would apply because it is in the best interests of the encyclopedia and its readers not to spread misinformation out of blind adherence to internal Wikipedia rules. We're not here to lie about people, even WP:WELLKNOWN ones. -- Noroton (talk) 20:17, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

*KeepChange to delete, see below This seems like a complicated one, and although I know my way around AfD I'd be grateful for some feedback.

  1. This event meets WP:GNG due to significant coverage in multiple reliable sources.
  2. To dismiss the WP:RS as unreliable is to apply the community's own knowledge. Surely this is WP:OR? If the event was not to do with wp but some other website, and all we had to go on was sources that are repeatedly used across the encyclopedia, we would be accepting them. WP:V in reliable sources and not THE TRUTH<insert escape code for TM sign here> are what is told to all the editor-promoters of TV shows, films, scientific theories, etc. "But I know it's coming out in 3 weeks, the director told me." is the exact same situation, to me, as saying "we know Blacketer didn't do that, we were here". Point me to WP:RS that support your position or I might tend to think you were a hypocrite. ;-) wink to nullify possible rudeness here
  3. WP:NAVEL is not relevant, it is referring to the construction and writing style of articles and the avoidance of the use of the word wikipedia.
  4. WP:NOT#NEWS is not relevant - it dismisses use of Routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for an article, not actual articles on actual events.
  5. I can't see what's WP:COATRACKy about this, it is focused on the event - maybe the article has improved beyond versions used for previous !votes.
  6. Again, perhaps because of the improvements, WP:ONEEVENT doesn't apply, the article is about the event and not the person.
I think that's everything covered. Abuse, criticism (+/-) and other comments welcome below! Bigger digger (talk) 14:24, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Re the WP:OR issue, note WP:WELLKNOWN – Wikipedia maintains records that can be inspected and verified by the public, and these can be accessed to augment secondary-source coverage as per BLP policy. JN466 14:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Bigger - WP:BLP - "We must get the article right." That means that any source that can be proven to be wrong is instantly declared a non-reliable source in a BLP. This has already happened. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Jayen and Ottava. Given that we can prove the sources wrong then, playing devil's advocate, if WP:BLP is so important, shouldn't someone follow through on getting "the article right" and remove [... the material] immediately and without waiting for discussion as per WP:BLP? I'm sorry if this is a bit of hand holding, but either the article is "wrong", should be corrected "immediately" and then get AfD'ed (I'd switch to delete due to lack of WP:RS) or the use of WP:BLP in this situation isn't quite so important? Bigger digger (talk) 15:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing as how the sources are wrong, it fails notability as there are no reliable third party sources. The only way to "get it right" is to delete, as is common for most BLP situations like this. However, many people above seem to think that we need to override BLP standards because it deals with Wikipedia. That would set a very bad double standard. Jimbo has stated time and time again that BLP is one of our most important policies as it can have a lot of ramifications and effects, so we should all reflect on that and try to make it our priority also. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Ottava. The bold text I copied from WP:BLP suggests to me that this information should be immediately removed, so if you thought there was a problem here WP:BLP would require you to remove the offending information right away, perhaps leaving a stub. The fact that no-one has done that suggests to me that BLP does not carry the required weight to "matter" in this situation. (Or, it's not sufficiently strongly written). I also think the use of wp diffs is an interesting addition for use in verification. Per WP:GNG: "Reliable" means sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline. Sources may encompass published works in all forms and media. Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability. So they may have got the facts wrong but they still establish notability. So, notability is established by the news reports, V is established by our own diffs and quotes from those reports. That'd be my current position. Cheers. Bigger digger (talk) 06:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"so if you thought" So, Bigger is suggesting that I start edit warring over this article? Come on, your argument is 100% completely inappropriate. BLP is clear. Your lack of caring about it is disturbing. A closing admin knows our policies and knows that your comments contradict them. Therefore, you can keep talking on and on, but your point will be ignored in closing. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how you'd do it, I'm just saying that if that's the policy shouldn't someone be applying it? I don't not care about BLP, I'm just new to it. Perhaps that means I can point out the flaws in it, or maybe I'm not accustomed to its expected application, but the lack of action speaks volumes to me about the consensus, but it doesn't to you. No worries, we don't agree! ;-) Bigger digger (talk) 15:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<--Changed my vote, the fact that we know the sources are wrong. Per WP:RS: "Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made." I can now see how the fact that the sources are wrong about the events invalidates there ability to make the event notable. If someone was to publish a news item reporting the correct story I would switch back. Thanks for your time Ottava, I look forward to debating again with you soon! Bigger digger (talk) 15:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Bigger digger's original summation of the situation. I think the argument that the newspaper reports are too inaccurate to stand as RS citations is overstated and the article in its current form handles inaccuracies in the article well. That said, I'm not certain I'm in a position to express an unbiased vote. I had edit disputes with David Boothroyd when he was editing as Fys back in late 2007 as I felt his position in the Labour party meant he had a conflict of interest that he should have expressed when it came to actions over the articles on Miranda Grell and Maurice Burgess.Bondegezou (talk) 17:03, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break 5

edit

Much information has been added to the article since this AfD was started. The picture of Cameron that a good part of the controversy was about has now been sourced and a fair-use rationale supplied. It is shown in the article. The article as it is now bears little resemblance to how it looked when the first editors commented above. Should we think about restarting the AfD? JN466 12:24, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you proposing a relisting, or just that we all !vote again from here? Bigger digger (talk) 14:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As stated above, the BLP concerns say that we must use "high quality" sources, and the information from Wikipedia proves that the sources used are not "high quality". Therefore, we lack any appropriate sourcing regardless of the changes. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:20, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Even though the article now contains the truth as well as the misrepresentations, I am still in favour of Delete. JN466 14:32, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But we aren't about truth, we are about verification. Those are the standards we apply to other articles, those must be the standards we apply here. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As per WP:BLP, it has to be both - "We must get the article right." That is one of our most important policies. A source on a BLP is not "reliable" unless it is extremely credible and not proven wrong. None of these sources meet the BLP requirements, as they hold factual inaccuracies that are blatant. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I haven't been here that long, but even I know the "verifiability not truth" language. Do you really not know this? Unitanode 21:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please read WP:BLP. All of it. It makes quite clear that verifiability is not enough. JN466 22:07, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Get it right" is different than "truth" in the way you use it. "Truth" is used to describe people who have fringe views that pretend to know the truth. Having actual comparable data that proves that a source is wrong is part of the reliable source aspect of BLP. That is what "get it right" means. These sources fail V because of BLP's strict requirements. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Ottava Rima. Although the content might have changed the sources haven't. Even more disturbingly since I last checked the article is now using wikipedia contribs as a source[47]. It is now Original research. I still say it should be deleted no need to re-list or re-qualify this afd. It's the same problems just now with additional ones--Cailil talk 15:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is no need to relist the AFD. No matter how well verified, the article is still just a hugh BLP violation (Undue weight and such) disguised as a news story, of which Wikipedia is not supposed to be anyway. Self-absorbed navel-gazing narcissism. More references does not change this. Thatcher 19:07, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure how I would !vote now if asked, but I do at least want to point out that I think the article has improved a lot and is a pretty interesting example of unorthodox sourcing. In particular, the use of diffs and Special:Contribs as sources for some of the analysis in the "Controversial edits" section is, I think, pretty nice; it's not what we typically think of as an RS, and maybe some people might bring up OR concerns with it, but it is also completely factual, there is no doubt that those diffs happened and stuff like that. I think a decent job has been done balancing out the junk that was published in the news reports and making this into an article that is actually kind of informative. I'm still not sure if the incident itself is notable, but I just wanted to comment about the improvement the article has seen. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 15:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't know whether the article should be kept or deleted but I must say that Jayen's use of WP:IAR was inspired. He gets a surreal barnstar from me. It would be good if the article surfaced somewhere else so that the record is finally set straight. Esowteric (talk) 16:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep One of the most powerful people on wikipedia turned out to be a sockpuppeteer. Seems completely notable enough, considering also the Essjay Controversy article. In addition, there is plenty of coverage from other papers.Teeninvestor (talk) 22:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just for reference, Sam discontinued the use of the Fys (talk · contribs) and Dbiv (talk · contribs) accounts in 2007, well before he became an arbitrator. JN466 22:46, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He didn't disclose his multiple accounts and his use of them was overlapping, not to mention issue of COI. I don't think a discussion of his merits or demerits as an editor here has any place in this discussion. Notability is determined based on substantial coverage in reliable sources, which we certainly have for this matter and individual. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please remove the "still" word, the decision has not been made yet. --98.154.26.247 (talk) 07:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. If (as is suggested on the article's talk page), wikipedia logs are allowable providing that use of the data does not infringe WP:OR, ie is not analyzed nor interpreted but merely included as examples of the actual editing reported previously in nominally reliable sources, then surely we can't call for deletion on the grounds that the article's sources have been shown to be unreliable and hence has no reliable sources to satisfy notability and verifiability, as others have suggested here? Paradox? Esowteric (talk) 10:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Wikipedia logs are reliable enough to prove if a source falls under reliable source or not. They contradict the sources, which establishes that there are no reliable sources per BLP. BLP makes it clear that sources cannot have inaccuries like these sources do. Hence, "high quality references".Ottava Rima (talk) 13:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I don't even know what to say. If issues like this one are supposed to be notable, then our definition of notability is seriously flawed. --Conti|✉ 14:23, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Still delete per WP:NOT#NEWS UntilItSleeps Public PC 14:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Policy aside, whoever made this article has no role whatsoever generating content on an encyclopedia. We make pages to embarrass people now? Go make articles about things we need not about people who do dumbass things on Wikipedia. We have many obvious gaps in important content here and you jackasses are making articles on some Arb burned by someone with a hate-on for Wikipedia? Nail the dude on his reconfirmation RfA if you don't like him but don't use article space for grudges -- Samir 15:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete is this something an encyclopedia should cover? No. Darrenhusted (talk) 15:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • On reflection, I am not convinced that the topic meets the threshold of the general notability guideline due to the paucity of coverage in reliable sources. Neither The Daily Mail, The Register nor Wikipedia (which is cited extensively and completely inappropriately) have reputations for fact checking or accuracy, leaving The Independent (whose article was republished by the New Zealand Herald) as the only source with a reputation for reliability. As has been pointed out, however, the report on Blacketer is not reliable, being strewn with errors. In addition, the new version of the article is being padded out with original research and primary sources with the effect that it does unjustifiably impinge upon the reputation of a living person and gives a very different impression of the topic than one gets from reading the third-party sources. Perhaps some of the more credible claims from the article in The Independent can be used to support a line or two in the History of Wikipedia article, but I doubt it; this article, at least, should go.  Skomorokh  16:03, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, per WP:BLP1E, and per Skomorokh. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:16, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - BLP concerns in an article about a poorly sourced and inaccurate news report about one event. Why would an encyclopedia include this? Let it go. Tom Harrison Talk 16:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Notability is permanent. A year or two from now I doubt if anybody besides Wikipedians will know or care about these events. Any accurate and reliably sourced content can be merged into Criticisms of Wikipedia or some such appropriate article, observing WP:UNDUE. Jehochman Talk 16:41, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's a worryingly careless reference to (I assume) the policy phrase "Notability is not temporary" which is supposed to mean that a subject doesn't need to have ongoing news coverage, once it reaches a threshold of notability. Disembrangler (talk) 16:59, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete A well written article that meets our notability threshold, I dont at all agree with classing the Daily Mail as unreliable. However , although not technically an attack page , its serving that purpose. Much as Im happy about the exposure of our left wing / materialist bias and the fact its not always achieved "by the book", I prefer that in cases of borderline noteabity we honour the wishes of the subject. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:44, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. A news item (not a genuine encyclopaedic entry), slightly embarrassing to the subject, unlikely to be of longterm interest outside Wikipedia, based partly on sources that we know to be inaccurate. Anirishwoman (talk) 16:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Is there any doubt that this would be universally agreed to be obviously and completely non-notable if it were any web site other than Wikipedia? Everything else is just special pleading. Groomtech (talk) 17:05, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: I've been avoiding this particular issue, but I do want to be on record here. This is a pretty clear case of WP:BLP1E and WP:NOT#NEWS. The long-term significance of this is likely to be zero. Does anyone think this will merit a mention in, say, Encyclopedia Brittanica's next edition? Or that of any serious, respectable reference work? Balance that with respect for privacy and issues of real-life harm.

    Top it off with a serious concern about a lack of perspective. Reality check - Wikipedia is not the center of the universe or the sole supplier of information, so we cannot "censor" anything. Anyone capable of typing "Sam Blacketer" or "David Boothroyd" into a textbox on Google will be deluged with information on this topic, whether or not we feature an article on it, so let's stop throwing around the word "censorship". We "censor" BLPs all the time when the subject is marginally (non-)notable, a private figure, and the subject of possible real-life harm - or at least we should.

    Most disturbing is the implication that a biographical article is a form of "accountability" or "punishment" for Wiki-sins like sockpuppetry. BLPs are not a form of punishment, nor a means of enforcing accountability. This is exactly the sort of issue where the more critical and disaffected segments of the community should be out front leading the charge to delete this article, since Wikipedia's fetish for these sorts of biographies is a common rallying point of critcism. MastCell Talk 18:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • That's interesting, because 'Google says yes' (28,000 hits and counting) has got to be the most common rebutal when trying to delete anything on grounds of notability and NOT#NEWS. It's an ignorant and simplistic analysis, but if it's good enough for 99% of other articles, even minor BLPs aplenty, if people aren't intentionally or unintentionally being biased, it's good enough here as a jumping off point to throw out certain arguments at the starting post. The way some people are going on in this Afd throwing around WP:NOT#NEWS, you would think that national newspapers across the globe treated Wikipedia scandals or Wikipedia editors as noteworthy every single day. Or bizzarely, that some people honestly think this coverage was simply a matter of daily routine for the likes of The Telegraph etc. Hah. NOT#NEWS has got to be the worst argument for saying this article should be deleted, and I hope the eventual closer goes nowhere near to endorsing it as even remotely relevant to this article. BLP and its numerous tentacles to other policies is about the only plausible starting point for any argument for deletion, and we all know how random that is as a uniformly applied policy. If anything, this article should have easily been merged to represent a couple of lines in a subsequently properly debated David Boothroyd, existing as it had since 2005. But creative interpretation of 'OMG BLP' and subsequent mis-use of DRV as invisible AFD 2 has sorted that one as a possible outcome already, producing the learning paradox that this article, which represents an unsaveable attack page even more than his summarily deleted ordinary bio, now wonderously warrants a full discussion by far more people than ever before. Learning in action. Doing no harm as a philosophy is all well and good, but when you are shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, it only looks like self important rubbish. Wikipedia is not the world, but the world (where Boothroyd has many a time inter-acted on a public level when it suited him) does not stop retaining knowledge of David Boothroyd just because we have. MickMacNee (talk) 19:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • When I mention WP:NOT#NEWS, I simply mean that we have an obligation to consider whether this incident is truly noteworthy in a historical, encyclopedic context beyond the next few 24-hour news cycles. I assume the remainder of your statement is additional rebuttal, but I'm not able to follow it sufficiently to respond. MastCell Talk 20:03, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • But you seem to think that our standard of what is "truly noteworthy in a historical, encyclopedic context", is the same as Brittanicca. I can't take that as anything but proveably false. MickMacNee (talk) 20:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • I think that in assessing what is "encyclopedic", it is useful to refer to other encyclopedias. The word seems to lack meaning otherwise. I'm starting from the presumption that Wikipedia aspires to be a serious, respectable reference work. If that's the case, then it's worth considering how other serious, respectable reference works might handle such a situation. If this idea is truly as crazy as you're trying to make it out to be, maybe this place isn't worth the effort any longer. MastCell Talk 20:41, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • You'd definitely be wasting your time trying to apply that concept across Wikipedia. Sure it might eventually be applied that way for this article, but that is the wonderful nonsense of the place. Speaking of 'serious reference works', say someone one day wrote a proper 'Encyclopoedia of Wikipedia', on paper and everything. Do you think Boothroyd or his Controversy would make the cut? I think so. But, that's not particularly relevant here anyway, it's just an interesting thought experiment. MickMacNee (talk) 20:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not that it matters much, but Google says 206, not 28,000. JN466 21:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd like to strongly agree that views that anyone should make an article as punishment are reprehensible and should be repudiated. However, I'm not seeing anyone claiming that. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep well-written, lots of sources, notable. Granite thump (talk) 18:33, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete If this person weren't connected to Wikipedia, we wouldn't be having this discussion. This is a blatant WP:BLP1E; as someone above says, unlike the Siegenthaler incident the long term impact of this on anyone other than the subject himself is going to be zero. This isn't "censorship"; if Britannica fired a writer for a perceived conflict of interest we wouldn't give it its own article, and I don't see how this case is any different. – iridescent 19:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Vomit A BLP violation in disguise as a story about an event. Self-absorbed navel-gazing narcissism at its worst. Oh my God, someone pretended to be someone else on Wikipedia, how will civilization survive? Thatcher 19:05, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Wikipedia part of civilization won't survive as a record of all human knowledge by pretending this is an everyday internal matter, pissing all over its own concept of notability. BLP violation? Debateable (which is why we are here) given the person and the context, the rational debate of which is now tarnished by our own previous out of process application of our ever changing and random BLP policy on this very subject. Navel gazing? Since when were the editors of the Independant and the Daily Mail part of Wikipedia? Narcissism? In defence of a minor career politician who previously 'reserved his right to become Wikipedia notable at some point', and by whose own failures to declare member's interests while in high office with Wikipedia caused this whole thing in the first place, that's a freeking classic. MickMacNee (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per extreme navel-gazing and per MZMcBride, Iridescent and Thatcher. --Peter Andersen (talk) 19:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Thanks, SqueakBox talk 20:26, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, WP:BLP1E. I know people are upset with the controversy (rightfully so, in my opinion), but I believe their emotions are taking precedent over rational thinking. In the grand scheme of things, will this event survive the test of time outside of Wikipedia? Probably not. Perhaps a one or two line mention in the criticism of Wikipedia or history of Wikipedia articles might be appropriate, but definitely not an entire article. I also agree with Skomorokh - there are a number of reliability issues with the sources used. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 21:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment BLP1E isn't about that. BLP1E explicitly is about not having biographies of individuals notable for one event. That's completely different than this. This isn't a biography. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It may not have the name of a person as its title, but it is clearly about a single person and events involving that person. Arguing that we can't apply the principle of BLP1E because the article doesn't meet your definition of biography is engaging in a level of formalism that is just unnecessary and unhelpful. Nathan T 22:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can't see how BLP1E applies here – it unambiguously refers to biographies separate from articles on events. If one grants that Mr. Boothroyd is not notable outside this controversy, all BLP1E has to say about it is that there ought not to be a David Boothroyd article.  Skomorokh  22:35, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn't noticed that. It is written by the same journalist as The Independent's article, Jamie Welham, and substantially reprints the content of the latter work. It does go into more depth than The Independent, and if deemed reliable would go some way to providing a foundation for a standalone article if it weren't for the fact that there really isn't a lot of meat in it. As for reliability, the West End Extra is a local tabloid not indexed by Google News (which might be why it was not noticed here until now), and the article is written in an infotainment tone. If it's anything like its freesheet sister paper the Camden New Journal, its use as a key source would be difficult to justify under WP:BLP.  Skomorokh  22:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I feel you misrepresent the Camden New Journal and West End Extra. The CNJ is a long-established and respected local newspaper that has won awards. Similar papers are routinely used as reliable sources on other articles. The CNJ is used as a reliable source on other articles. I am uncomfortable about this selective application of what constitutes a reliable source. Bondegezou (talk) 07:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. virtual non-event, seven-day wonder, etc. leaky_caldron (talk) 21:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as lacking adequate reliable sources: a brief piece of Wikipedia self referencing, short term political stirring by the far right at the Daily Mail during local election campaigns, and a woefully inaccurate piece in the Independent. The debunking of these inaccurate claims is interesting and useful, but looks rather like original research producing conclusions that haven't been published by a reliable source – these aspects could usefully be merged into User:JoshuaZ/David Boothroyd but shouldn't be in mainspace without proper sources. . . dave souza, talk 22:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete putting all other issues aside I am not at all convinced that Wikipedia is able to cover this topic from a neutral perspective with the amount of source material that is available. Even the title of the article suggests this, most of the sources barely mention the Wikipedia user name and none use it in their titles. Beyond that the citation of example diffs and contribution logs is not at all ideal and the (presently) short term and small scale of the incident to me means that this looks more like a news story than an encyclopaedia article. Some of the information given in the sources we know to be false, above someone says that this doesn't matter, just the sources saying it makes it verifiable. To me this is a worrying interpretation of Wikipedia:Verifiability, all sources are situational to a degree and "verifiability not truth" - in my view - means something must be verified to be "true" by an appropriate reliable source. Users compare this to the Essjay scandal but that has sources including the BBC, The Telegraph and many others, this has a few tabloid and local publications - some information from which has been shown to be false - and for an article primarily about a living person (in whatever context and however the title is phrased) I do not think that is acceptable, especially when the information is largely negative. Guest9999 (talk) 22:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I see a lot of people here basically misapplying BLP1E to put forward a view that could be best summarized as "Delete because it portrays Wikipedia in a way we don't agree with." This controversy is notable, and has been covered by multiple reliable sources. That many editors here disagree with the perspective (or "spin", if you will) that the reliable sources have on the controversy should not bear at all on the decision to keep or delete this article. Unfortunately, many editors are simply substituting their own perspective ("spin") for that of the reliable sources, and demanding that it be deleted. Unitanode 00:53, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or Userfy Wikipedia should not become a site devoted mostly to its own history. For many devoted Wikipedians the elections of Arbcom are much more important than, say, Iran 2009 presidential elections but for the readers of the site the inner working of Wikipedia has zero importance. Thus, notability of all the Wikipedia-related staff should be triple checked and in this case it is certainly not here. Aditionally there are significant WP:BLP issues Alex Bakharev (talk) 01:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Still strong delete: here's the hitch, the newspaper sources were rubbish, in the current version we're sourcing Wikipedia diffs to rebut them (navel-gazing or what? What on earth does WP:RS have to say?). NB I am not !voting like this in order to "preserve Wikipedia's reputation" - the current article is probably the only place on the internet you can get the real story and see that much of what the news media are said is junk! So please stop telling me that I'm part of some great cover-up conspiracy. Skomorokh is bang on the banana. TheGrappler (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is quickly devolving. The very fact that you write, "the current article is probably the only place on the internet you can get the real story" shows why this article needs to exist, sans the original research of citing WP itself to refute the perspective of the reliable sources. It doesn't matter one whit what the perspective of various editors of the project is, but rather what the reliable sources have to say. Disagree with their perspective all you like, but it remains true that the story has received wide coverage, and has become a controversy notable in its own right. That so many editors are convinced that they are right and the sources are wrong doesn't change this fact. Unitanode 02:37, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Disagree with their perspective all you like" - it's not the perspective that's the problem, but that there are factual errors. If we know sources are incorrect, why should we run with them? The sources are simply, and clearly, not of a standard that can be relied upon in an article with WP:BLP concerns. What we currently have in the article would in many ways be more suitable for a press release - in terms of explaining what the controversy is, and how it relates to the Wikipedia diffs. It might even be suitable as a page in Wikipedia: space (which seems a good spot to document Wikipedian history). It ain't suitable, surely, for a mainspace article - "Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that cites its own diffs"? So in some sense you are correct, in many ways the article needs the Wikipedian slant taken out, but if we do that then we get an article that has fatal sourcing problems. That and, frankly, I'm still not convinced that just because something gets widespread news coverage it is inherently notable, especially if the coverage essentially consists of one story being churned over, translated and rewritten between dozens of newspapers. Just look in your newspaper right now - virtually ever story in it will have been covered in other papers too, even the fairly minor ones, but they probably won't all get their own article on WP. There's a fair chance that some of those facts will be incorporated in suitable summary form into other, larger, articles though - which might make more sense as a fate for this article's content. I also do wonder about the possibility of shifting the coverage onto WikiNews instead of Wikipedia (honestly, have a browse round WikiNews, it's interesting to see what's there, and compare it to what you get off the "Random article" button on Wikipedia. This helps attune one's senses of whether you are looking at something which is an encyclopedic subject, or actually a news article. At the moment we have what is basically a news article.) TheGrappler (talk) 03:07, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • That argument as given doesn't work well. A lot of the sources do have serious problems. The Daily Mail for example can't even get the definition of sockpuppeting correct (they conflate it with astroturfing). Unconditionally Relying on sources that we know aren't correct is simply not ok. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break 6

edit
You're wrong. 76.208.69.190 (talk) 21:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The detailed references, complete with Wikipedia edit diffs and links to user contributions, convince me only that this article is not encyclopedic. There is a positive feedback loop between news media (wanting gossip) and Wikipedia (publishing it). A contributor does bad stuff here; it's reported there; we use the reports to justify an article here; that encourages more reports there; we do even more articles here... It's not exactly applicable, but I invoke WP:DENY to request that this pointless article be deleted to break the loop. The article has been given a title that attempts to avoid deletion as a negative WP:BLP1E. However, it is clear that it is an attack article – it doesn't matter if the attack is warranted or not; it is just not appropriate for an encyclopedia. Johnuniq (talk) 05:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Last comment. I've been looking back through other deletion discussions to get some perspective on this one. I've hesitated to make this post, as I don't want it to be construed as an attack on the individuals recommending deletion. However, I feel it must be noted that the deletion recommendations in this discussion are some of the weakest I've come across in my perusing of other discussions. BLP is cited again and again, when the very similar Essjay controversy article exists, and has for quite some time. Quite simply, there are no arguments that don't simply boil down to "we don't like the way the reliable sources are telling story so delete". This is just not acceptable in any way. Unitanode 05:55, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, an awful lot of people are arguing, as I do, that this is a total non-event, utterly lacking in notability, and that this would be obvious if any site other than Wikipedia had been involved. It's just not that important folks! Groomtech (talk) 06:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad it's your last comment. While you find our arguments, citing BLP based on the fact that the sources used have been deemed wholly unreliable and riddled with inaccuracies, weak; I find that the keep arguments in this discussion are some of the most disgusting I've seen in a BLP-related AFD. We're not censoring criticism, we're not protecting one of our own. The sources are wrong. They don't accurately explain the workings of Wikipedia, and much less and more importantly, they don't accurately explain the Boothroyd controversy. If an accurate story had hit the media and spread like wild fire, as happened with the Essjay controversy, we'd not be having this debate. As it is, however, the situation is not being reliably reported, thus, as far as we should be concerned, it fails WP:V and thus WP:N. We have our own, 100% accurate internal references to write something in our own project space. If there is one reliable third-party source accurately presenting the information, as has been suggested above, then we have something to throw into one of our Wikipedia articles (history or whatever). But for a stand-alone article, we've got internal controversy being inaccurately reported on an otherwise non-notable living individual. The controversy is a hit to the projects already tarnished reputation. To keep such an article just further examples how this project is failing to uphold BLP standards at any level above pathetically. لennavecia 18:37, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I realise that this comment applies to the one preceding mine, but thought it worth discussing anyway. It seems to be about declaring sources unreliable ("wrong") because we, or some of us, know. WP:V explicitly states that the criterion for inclusion is "not whether we think it is true". Although I agree with the conclusion, for other reasons, I think it important to understand why Wikipedia as a topic gets special treatment. Groomtech (talk) 21:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't, at least not beyond the fact that many editors don't understand how non-notable it is. (1) General interpretation of WP:V, see WP:REDFLAG, which covers "claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community". The relevant community in this case is Wikipedia, and the prevailing view within Wikipedia is that most of the claims by the press are wrong or misleading. "Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality sources. If such sources are not available, the material should not be included." (2) The standards in WP:BLP are stricter than WP:V: "[Biographical material] must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States". Making misleading claims when we know they are misleading would be libel. Also: "Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should not be used, either as a source or as an external link." These sources are of dubious value because get most things wrong. Also: "When writing about a person notable only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems, even when the material is well-sourced. [...] In the worst case, it can be a serious violation of our policies on neutrality." (3) From WP:UNDUE: "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." Note that it says "to the subject", not "to Wikipedia". --Hans Adler (talk) 22:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above comment by Hans Adler is, perhaps, the best worded, most reasoned delete argument in this discussion. Very well explained and linked. Thank you. لennavecia 22:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (Strong keep) Whether the story is true or not, a controversy is an event that involves people disapprove or approve about. Just take Scientology for example, there must be people approving their actions and people against it. But removing them from history or references isn't going to solve the problem. I completely agree Unitanode's opinion. If the discussion is to defend Wikipedia's disputes over accuracy or rejecting its criticism, then the comments suggesting deletion are quite weak. --98.154.26.247 (talk) 06:48, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Still Delete — as I said ages ago. And this 7 day idea was a Bad Idea™ — it amounts to drama-prolongation (we're at 133kb). Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (Keep) I'm just curious, can you tell me what is the bad idea (with ™ on it)? --98.154.26.247 (talk) 06:56, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Drama is not inherently a sign that something is a bad idea. We need to have discussions sometimes and they will be heated when many people have strong opinions. That's just the way things go. The important part there is that we strive to keep the conversation civil. Although there have been some minor lapses I think this hasn't gone that badly. JoshuaZ (talk) 17:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment — Hey, look! It's back! With 'calm' tags ;) So can weez plz haz it goez awaz 'ginz tomorrow? Cheerz, Jack Merridew 10:26, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This has no encyclopedic merit at all. Majorly talk 17:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • DeleteThis is navel-gazing of the most embarrassing sort. // BL \\ (talk) 21:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reluctant deleteNeutral Nothing on the BBC. Nothing on ITV. Nothing in The Times. Nothing in the Guardian. If even one of these reported on it, it would be enough to save the article. If neither of these outlets find this newsworthy, for us to keep it would do nothing but damage our credibility. Blueboy96 22:07, 13 June 2009 (UTC) Change to Neutral, per the cite from The Independent--agreed, it's of comparable standing to the Times and Guardian. However, I don't think it's EVER appropriate to source from a Wikipedia contribution history. Blueboy96 14:04, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. There is also a citation to an article in The Independent, surely of comparable significance to The Times or The Guardian. Bondegezou (talk) 10:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: TV coverage does not necessarily apply, as they often cherry pick from just a few really notable events and some stories wouldn't come over well on the TV. I know writers who've sold books by the million who haven't received much TV news coverage. As for the Times, the Independent is comparable. Esowteric | Talk 11:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Try Wikinews. Esowteric | Talk 22:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Even in its relatively stable state currently it reads like a non-event. Sorry, this may be huge deal, for a bit, on Wikipedia, for some, but fails notability otherwise. That the sources get key information wrong ala poor tabloidy journalism also doesn't help. I'm afraid this fulfills the wp:duck test of being an attack page. It also violates BLP on sourcing grounds and I see little good of having it here. As scandals go this is pretty lightweight, even by Wikipedia scandal metrics. -- Banjeboi 23:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per sources noted by Cirt. It's a notable controversy. The nominators's claims that this is a "non-event" is voided by all the coverage, the claim that it's "unintellible for someone outside the Wikipedia community" appears to be untrue for the current version. And I don't see any more WP:BLP concerns than there would be for Essjay controversy. Of course, we could always delete it and then just recreate it later when there's even more coverage of Wikipedia sweeping it under the rug. --Pixelface (talk) 23:49, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. By its nature as the world's largest encyclopaedia, anything that creates a bit of a wiki-stir becomes news-fodder for a lazy journo with columns to fill (or, in the case of the Mail, an political agenda to push). Its time we stopped peddling this self-referential crap. This particular incident is already chip paper, and if anything, deserves only a line or two in Criticism of Wikipedia (which it already has). Rockpocket 00:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Peregrine Fisher. X MarX the Spot (talk) 01:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. There are big signs saying that this is not a majority vote, and yet when Daniel accidentally prematurely closed this debate, he said, "Therefore, the only way to determine which argument is applied in situations like this is to determine what portion of the community agrees with either - the discussion below shows a stronger agreement with the belief that this does not meet the standard for inclusion", but that seems to me to be treating this rather like a majority vote. Is there not a better approach here with respect to policy? Consider the recent deletion review for Rognvald Richard Farrer Herschell, 3rd Baron Herschell, where a slight majority of comments were for deletion, but where the article was kept. There are explanatory comments there like, "We don't look at these discussions purely in voting terms. The emphatic principle of WP:DGFA is When in doubt, don't delete." And a second person endorsed the keeping of the article "as a valid reading of strength of arguments. We don't vote on Wikipedia, so the exact number of votes is irrelevant. Both sides have good points, so no consensus is the correct outcome." Applying that logic would seem to suggest that if, as Daniel concluded, there are valid arguments on both sides, we should not count votes but conclude "no consensus" and therefore keep the article (or keep the material under a new David Boothroyd article). I offer this as an attempt to interpret policy; not as a vote. Bondegezou (talk) 10:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Votes that boil down to "navel-gazing", "I don't like it" and "I don't like it, either" should not be given anything like as much weight as reasoned arguments. Esowteric | Talk 11:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Sufficient notability hasn't been asserted, I'm not going to regurgitate the comments of the numerous other users above me. Steve Crossin Talk/Help us mediate! 11:20, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Still with us Steve? In terms of exits you're competing with Nelly M. ;) X MarX the Spot (talk) 14:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, I'm still here :) Steve Crossin Talk/Help us mediate! 22:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yet another comment. Several people in this discussion clearly have had past interactions with Mr Boothroyd and have views about his contributions to Wikipedia — some good, some bad. We should recognise that these can colour our views of the article. On a quick review, I am the only person who has recused himself from saying 'keep' or 'delete' on the basis of past interactions with Mr Boothroyd on Wikipedia. I have explained what those past interactions were (edit disputes with Fys in late 2007). I should also say that I often argued with Mr Boothroyd on Usenet in years gone by. I offer that as an approach to deal with any possible conflicts of interest. Bondegezou (talk) 11:29, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete What matters here on Wikipedia does not generally speaking matter much in the real world. It's just drama, like many other dramas. Orderinchaos 14:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete after reading through the arguments pro and con, I find the argument that our own logs prove the sources are misleading, and hence not reliable for our purpose, convincing. The picture edit is a non-issue on several levels (fairly accurate edit summary, fair-use vs. free-use, etc.) While Boothroyd might be notable enough to keep, this article definitely isn't.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete After wading through every post above (and ignoring "per"s) I have come to the conclusion that BLP (which is far too often bent on WP) is the overriding issue. Anyone who wishes to track the issue can use "search" and find other cases in the past which have not led to pseudo-biographies. I would rather omit a handful which should be here than allow ones which do not rationally qualify as notable to anyone but WP people to exist in mainspace. The primary obligation here is to BLP, and that pretty much says "delete." Collect (talk) 16:35, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Having read through the sources, I find they just aren't reliable, and that includes The Independent and the Daily Mail. In order to inflate this into a scandal, some of the sources imply that this person was trying to influence discussions by participating in them under different user names -- but I've never seen any evidence of that, anywhere. The edits to the David Cameron article appear to be sincere attempts to make the article better, with some edits helping Cameron's image, some hurting, so the conflict of interest seems mostly technical, although he shouldn't have done it. If this were presented without exaggeration, there wouldn't be a news story big enough to report on, and since nearly all the inaccuracies and exaggerations I see in the news articles are attempts to make something more out of this than there is, I find the news articles are not reliable sources. In fact, the news articles appear to be more partisan than the Wikipedia edits. We need good, reliable sources for articles, which are absent in this article, and we shouldn't be pointing readers to unreliable sources. If we step back from policies and guidelines and just consider the purpose of a Wikipedia article, we should recognize that it's supposed to be to inform readers about subjects notable enough to be worth the time for someone to read. This subject doesn't make the grade. I think some of the information on Blacketeer's minor no-no's is worth inclusion somewhere on Wikipedia, possibly on a page about ArbCom's history, but this subject hasn't been shown to be worthwhile in article space. -- Noroton (talk) 17:37, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    "If we step back from policies and guidelines and just consider the purpose of a Wikipedia article, we should recognize that it's supposed to be to inform readers about subjects notable enough to be worth the time for someone to read." - Good point. لennavecia 22:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Self referential NN nonesence. Ceoil (talk) 17:59, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete A rather unimportant event. Not everything mentioned in the news is notable. --Apoc2400 (talk) 22:26, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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