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I understand that there are permissable uses for multiple accounts. I saw long ago that User:Dervorguilla has an info box on her user page indicating that she has more than one account. I've assumed good faith about it, until now. But I honestly never imagined she'd use an alternate account this way. I'm gob-smacked. Can this possibly be appropriate? David in DC ( talk) 02:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
I've asked about this at AN/I David in DC ( talk) 02:54, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Err, I'm a little confused now. The revised text today, consistent with the referenced sources, says: "he was charged, in Massachusetts District Court." My understanding was that the Mass. stuff took place in Superior Court, not in District Court. I'm not clear on what took place in District Court, but ultimately there was a Superior Court indictment, docket, and arraignment. Perhaps all arrests are at the District Court level even when the prosecution is not? Was he actually charged in District Court? (Was he then charged in Superior Court, too?) Perhaps the distinction between Mass. District Court (Cambridge) and Mass. Superior Court (Middlsex County) is too minor to have here and we should choose a neutral phrasing (Mass Court?). Or maybe we should get it right. I don't think there was a removal from one to the other, but I suppose I don't truly know. And this comment is based on my memory and casual glancing at things rather than rigorous research, though I'm pretty sure I didn't state anything incorrect here. jhawkinson ( talk) 02:43, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dervorguilla ( talk | contribs) at 13:40, 9 May 2013. It may differ significantly from the current revision. |
[…]
Dervorguilla, not having received the support she was looking for at AN3, has now taken this discussion to ANI. And here. And she's started making minor at
EastgateSystems, in which she's presumably interested because I work there. This is getting tiresome.
[…] MarkBernstein ( talk) 12:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
This is an
old revision of this page, as edited by
MarkBernstein (
talk |
contribs) at |
[…]
Dervorguilla, not having received the support she was looking for at AN3, has now taken this discussion to ANI. And here. And she's started making inconsequential edits at
Eastgate Systems, in which she's presumably interested because I work there. At other pages, these inconsequential edits have been the prelude to an edit war. This is getting tiresome.
[…] MarkBernstein ( talk) 12:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
(cur | prev) 14:36, 9 May 2013 MarkBernstein ( talk | contribs) . . m . . (66,220 bytes) (+116) . . ( →Restoring Silverglate) (undo)
No insertion markup, no timestamp, no edit summary. Marked as a minor edit. --
Dervorguilla (
talk)
23:49, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Dervorguilla, I think MarkBernstein's edit was just fine. He entered a comment on a talk page, and three minutes later he revised his sentence. Neither edit used an edit summary, but this is a talk page. The two edits were consecutive, and very close in time. Use of the minor tag was entirely appropriate. I would suggest a WP:WIKIBREAK may be in order here—please give it due consideration. This feels like attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill. I think most readers of this talk page would rather focus on more substantive concerns. (PS: the indentation within a talk comment is driving me crazy; I can't tell the difference between indentation-within-a-comment versus indentation-that-indicates-a-reply, which I find frustrating. Perhaps the fault is my own!) jhawkinson ( talk) 10:52, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Going through the page history, it now looks to me like we’re going to need that full-page protection. One development that changed my mind: Our third most productive contributor recently had to be given a couple of admonishments concerning poor judgment. And some of his edit summaries and comments seem to me to suggest that he is, in good faith, unable to tell when he’s edit-warring.
See
Aaron Swartz revision history:
Dervorguilla. “‘JSTOR download’ -> ‘JSTOR incident’ (no evidence supporting any implication that Swartz didn’t make large downloads at Harvard).”
MarkBernstein (RR 4). “RV because the rationale in prev comment seems wrong; what do Harvard downloads have to do with anything? Talk, please.”
Addressing
MarkBernstein in particular-
Here’s the reason I
substituted the heading “JSTOR incident” for the heading “JSTOR download”. To my knowledge, no evidence has yet been found supporting the apparent implication in the heading “JSTOR download” that Swartz never made a large JSTOR download at Harvard too.
(Mutually understood: Swartz was a fellow at Harvard and had access to JSTOR at Harvard.)
I now think I was wrong in interpreting the comment below as “grandstanding”. It may conceivably have been written in good faith. Note: The quotation refers to an 82-word passage from Silverglate’s account of his (anonymous) sources’ statements about the prosecutors.
“How many people's time do we want to consume over one editor's inexplicable … distaste [for an] innocuous … quotation? Few if any editors comprehend…. No one knows or understands…. Who can tell?” --MarkBernstein (talk) 15:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
A helpful insight:
“A wp:wikibreak might, as another editor [(
jhawkinson)] suggested below, be in order.” --MarkBernstein (talk)
11:12, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
-- Dervorguilla ( talk) 06:12, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Archival content (locked
23:13, 18 May 2013 (UTC))
D. A. Leone? Who is Leone? What does he have to do with anything?! MarkBernstein ( talk) 15:41, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
|
No, Dervorguilla, we don't agree! Your concern about this line-whatever talk-page edit is your beef alone. Major, minor, minutes, hours...who cares? It all appears to be a thinly veiled attempt at ad hominem, discrediting an editor you're unable to persuade, in a misguided attempt to get him banned, as if that's somehow going to win people over to your side in your crusade about the Silverglate quote (etc.?)—content which you've repeatedly failed to convince anyone here is better than that which other editors have proposed. Continued finger-pointing will get you nowhere. This discussion is over. —
mjb (
talk)
21:27, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Draft
==== Arrest and state charges ====
On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested near the Harvard campus by two MIT police officers and a U.S. Secret Service agent on state charges of breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a felony.
Attorney Harvey Silverglate wrote an op-ed for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly describing what some lawyers familiar with the case told him: they had expected that Middlesex County District Attorney Gerard Leone would have the breaking-and-entering charges held in abeyance (continued without a finding) for at most two years and then dismissed, should Swartz have caused no further trouble in the meantime.
On November 17, Leone had Swartz indicted by a Middlesex Superior Court grand jury on charges of breaking-and-entering with intent, larceny of electronic data, and unauthorized access to a computer network. On December 16, he had the charges dismissed.
Swartz’s law firm said federal prosecutors had been running the investigation since he was first arrested:
The lead prosecutor in Mr. Swartz’s [federal] case, AUSA Stephen Heymann, ... and
[Secret Service]Agent Pickett directed and controlled the investigation of Mr. Swartz from the time of [his] arrest on January 6, 2011.... Heymann’s involvement in the case had commenced very early in the investigation....
^ …
^ Silverglate, Harvey (January 23, 2013).
"The Swartz suicide and the sick culture of the DOJ". Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Archived from
the original on 2013-01-24. "It was anticipated that the state charge would be continued without a finding, with Swartz duly admonished and then returned to civil society to continue his pioneering electronic work in a less legally questionable manner. Tragedy intervened when Ortiz’s office took over the case to send ‘a message.’"
^ McCullagh, Declan (January 25, 2013),
"Swartz didn't face prison until feds took over case, report says". c|net. Retrieved 2013-02-07.
^ …
-- Dervorguilla ( talk) 22:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC) 23:08, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
I declare that I do not intend to do any edit-warring. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 09:56, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
"I declare that I do not intend to do any edit-warring. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 09:56, 21 April 2013 (UTC)"
Restoring the Ocaasi– Jeff G.– Shearonink– MarkBernstein– Dervorguilla consensus text of February 7 (reverted by David in DC on February 8).
Ocaasi has asserted that the rephrased text is “more neutral” than the old MB–DDC text.
“Rephrase, a bit more neutrally.” — Ocaasi.
Ocaasi, Jeff G, Shearonink, MB, and Dervorguilla appear to have agreed that the old material by MB and DDC ought to be rephrased more neutrally. See page history.
About ten hours after Ocaasi published the consensus text, it was reverted. By DDC. He didn’t disagree that the old material was less neutral; rather, he said:
“With 1 dissenting voice, talk page consensus favors including this material.” — DDC.
So far, no editor appears to have disagreed with Ocaasi’s assertion that the consensus text is more neutral. All editors: If you think it isn’t, or if you’d rather have it restored anyway, could you give your reasoning here? -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 08:37, 30 April 2013 (UTC) 13:53, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
In Arrests, charges and indictments, I’m going to be substituting the “more neutral” passage written by sysop Ocaasi (16:30, 7 February 2013).
According to unnamed lawyers familiar with the case, the Middlesex County District Attorney had planned to resolve Swartz’s case with a stern warning and a continuance without a finding; if Swartz got into no further trouble with the law, the charges would have been dropped, the case dismissed, and Swartz "returned to civil society to continue his pioneering electronic work in a less legally questionable manner."
So far no one’s had a bad word to say about the language or about the admin who wrote it. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 05:04, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Removing the CNET reference, as suggested by Seth Finkelstein:
== c|net and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly are reliable sources ==
[…] Can someone explain why we're substituting our own opinions for what's been published in c|net, a reliable secondary source. -- David in DC 01:34, 7 February 2013
The McCullagh article isn’t a reliable source for BDP. It was not fact-checked by CNET. --Dervorguilla 06:32, 7 February 2013
[…] I would suggest that CNET be left out of it, since that's just an echo of the original post.[…] -- Seth Finkelstein 08:41, 7 February 2013
So far, no editor has disagreed that some of the statements in the McCullagh article about the Silverglate op-ed are false. All editors: If you believe that the article was indeed fact-checked, could you give your reasoning here? -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 09:16, 30 April 2013 (UTC) 13:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
I have no idea what you're talking about here. These pseudo-legalism is at best obscure. Mass Lawyers Weekly stands by its article, which should be included here. I can't for the life of me fathom what bothers you so much about it; it appears to me to simply state a fact that everyone understands but for with Mass Lawyers Weekly provided a solid, though off-the-record, source. MarkBernstein ( talk) 09:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
WP:QUOTE. General guidelines
“Never quote a false statement without immediately saying the statement is false.”
Here’s an authoritative source relevant to Silverglate’s statement.
Docket, United States v. Swartz,
No. 11-CR-10260
The defendant’s lead attorney (Elliot Peters) says:
“On the morning of January 4, … the Secret Service assumed control of the investigation.… On January 5, … [MIT’s] Program Manager of Scholarly Publishing & Licensing [told MIT’s Senior Network & Information Security Analyst] … that it was ‘now a Federal case’.”
The Assistant U.S. Attorney (Stephen Heymann) admits:
“Government counsel did, indeed, have [its alleged] chronology slightly wrong. The equipment was held in evidence by the MIT Police (rather than Cambridge Police) from its recovery on January 6 until February 3, when it was picked up and transported by [a Secret Service special agent] and [a City detective] to the Cambridge Police; … the Secret Service … t[ook] custody of the evidence on February 25.”
Opposing Peters’s motion to suppress, he says:
“The equipment was seized and held [by MIT Police] initially as evidence in a state case.”
(Yet the state prosecutor didn’t get to draw a grand jury for the state case until four months after Heymann drew one for the Federal case.)
If you believe Heymann, the equipment was being held as evidence for the Federal case as of February 25. If you believe Peters or MIT, January 6.
Does this evidence material indicate that Harvey’s allegation is more likely true or false? --
Dervorguilla (
talk)
22:22, 10 May 2013 (UTC) 23:20, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Who is "Harvey"?
In any case, none of this has any bearing on the Silverglate quotation. Silverglate reports what a lawyer with knowledge of the matter said. That is not in dispute. You think that this knowledgable lawyer was wrong, but we can't know that -- and we certainly have no reliable published source to confirm it. The quotation was published. It has not been retracted. All this controversy about who was "in control" of what on which date is, at present, original research and is, in the nature of the thing, subjective and subject to ambiguity. The fact Silverglate reports -- the statement of his source -- is true. Others may disagree with Silverglate's source -- you apparently do disagree for some reason -- but that is neither here nor there. MarkBernstein ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:10, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
The Silvergate quote is a RS that explains the difference between a state-only case and a full federal case, and it comports with our understanding of the case. The chronology is an entirely separate issue-- it had become a federal investigation prior to the arrest, but that doesn't automatically mean federal charges will be filed. Silvergate explains to us what it looks like if the Ortiz/Heymann team had exercised their discretion in the opposite direction. -- HectorMoffet ( talk) 03:57, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Is this subsection adding useful information to the subject? These posthumous hacks and hoaxes were not conducted by the subject, or with his knowledge or permission. Nor do they add significantly to the subject's notability. Perhaps they belong elsewhere -- on the page for Anonymous, perhaps -- but do they belong here? MarkBernstein ( talk) 21:09, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't disagree that Swartz will have a lasting influence; at the recent Web Science conference, several speakers felt comfortable in assuming that a room full of academic computer scientists drawn from the global research community would immediately recognize his name. But I'm not sure that some other people's hacks and pranks are going to be a significant part of that legacy. Nonetheless, if we think this section might be useful, let's keep it and revisit it in a year. MarkBernstein ( talk) 21:52, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
As suggested by MarkBernstein, I’m taking the ‘Salon’ dispute here. The current material is about a mural of Swartz that was reported in at least one reliable press source (Salon). Unlike the other material in this section ("In the press"), the press item is not about Swartz or about anything Swartz did. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 21:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Please note: Edits to this article are again being discussed at the edit-warring noticeboard. David in DC ( talk) 10:48, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the kind comments on my talk page and elsewhere.
I've done what little I could to save this page -- and wikipedia. I think it's clear that it's beyond me. Link: "They Hate Us"
I am tempted to spend an hour or so this weekend with this page to undertake a wholesale revision during the brief interval where we are, at least notionally, free from The Pajamas. The idea here would be to have one short-lived draft of the article as it might have been had we not spent months and months defending every tiny detail from relentless sniping. It will shine for a few minutes, The Pajamas will revert it, that will be that.
I'll probably think better of this and watch the Red Sox - Indians game instead, or add a feature to Tinderbox.
If you have ideas for what ought to be done or sources you'd include if only The Pajamas weren't going to come after you, I'd welcome them. Don't discuss here, please: we've had enough talk page discussion for several lifetimes. Email me: bernstein at eastgate.com. (I'll at least acknowledge promptly, so if you don't hear back, it's in the spam filter. Ping me. MarkBernstein ( talk) 13:16, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
What the tedious and unnecessary wrangling over the Silverglate quotation has tended to obscure is that the article is rather badly out of balance. The subject of the article was, after all, a remarkable (and remarkably young) software innovator, someone who in his late teens and early twenties had already been at the center of two widely-used internet standards, had built an internet startup and sold his stake in it for a very large sum of money, and who had since devoted his time to political causes and to fusing internet activism and politics. What we have on the page is a guy who did some stuff before his arrest, prosecution, suicide, and the controversies that arose in the wake of his death. The wikipedia page, in short, is the story of an alleged criminal who incidentally did some things before his arrest.
Though one obvious solution to this would be to rebalance the article by trimming legal detail, that approach seems very unlikely to prove tenable. We have spent months arguing over a single innocuous quotation!
Another solution, previously proposed here, was to move the entire discussion of the PACER and JSTOR prosecutions to a dedicated page, leaving no more than a sentence here to state that they happened and to provide a link. This page could then proceed directly to the eulogies and other sequelae. I fear that this would be a continuing headache, as new editors might well arrive and set out to rebuild the entire section, reopening the argument again and again.
Might we achieve better balance by making a more concerted effort to explain just what Swartz contributed in his technical work, and by seeking out remarks about its influence with the same energy we have spent seeking remarks about (for example) the appropriateness of various charges? This would leave us with an even longer page, to be sure, but one that has a more intelligent balance between the subject's accomplishments and his prosecution. MarkBernstein ( talk) 15:18, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
As the person who initially proposed forking the article for balance, I'm in favor of it, but with two reservations.
First, I didn't like that all that was left in the main article was a teaser in the lead section and a {{main}} link in the body of the article. A summary, even if it's 80% identical to the teaser in the lead, is necessary; people shouldn't have to read the other article to understand the basic issues in that aspect of Swartz's life.
I do understand the concern that people will be tempted to expand the hell out of any summary they're given, but that's how it always is when forking articles. The challenge is making the summary be terse and general enough that no one can really argue about it, yet also make it contain some useful information. The stability of the summary in the lead is testament to the fact that it can be done.
Second, as Dervorguilla alluded to, there's a problem in that there are two topics covered in the section in question: the state case and the federal case. They are intertwined, of course, but we have decided—though not irreversibly—that the title of the article to which this content is being relegated is the name of the federal case. If it is really going to be all about both cases, and if it's going to include the amount of posthumous commentary that it does (something not considered ideal in case articles), then I feel that we should retitle the article to something more general ("Aaron Swartz, JSTOR, and MIT legal issues" or whatever), awkward as it may end up being. That would be more consistent with how these situations are handled on Wikipedia. However I could be persuaded otherwise.
One thing, though: I don't think the state case is notable enough for its own article. What other articles will ever link to it? And what would be in it that wouldn't also be covered again when giving background for the federal case?
Regardless, I don't think the bold edit was out of line. It just needs some refinement. — mjb ( talk) 04:22, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
OK. I've heard no reply in three days, so I've tried again. This time I left more of a summary on this page, per comments above. I've also tried to make sure no refs are lost, leaving some paragraphs over-sourced. I'm hopeful that others will now edit my work. And hopeful that it won't just be blanket reverted. I think this is an improvement, giving us hope for a stable Aaron Swartz page, and moving the material that may be contentious to a stand-alone page. I don't think the ultimately-dismissed state cases are out of place on the new page. They explain the activity and set the stage. But, I'm hoping, that's a discussion for the talk page over there. David in DC ( talk) 17:58, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
All of the sources refer to "statements" or "rulings"; they do not simply state suicide as a 100% certain fact. So, I have changed the sentence to include the word reportedly.
May122013 ( talk) 13:25, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
An editor has now gone completely beyond the pale with his increasingly disruptive and argumentative edits. He has replaced "penned an article" with "wrote an account". He's provided no proof that Ms. Norton did not use a pen for her first draft and deviously conflated the concepts of "account" and "article".
Such behavior must be eradicated. I think each editor to this page should choose a notice board and file a complaint. Some obvious places would be WP:External_links/Noticeboard, WP:Non-free content review, WP:Fringe theories/Noticeboard and WP:WikiProject on open proxies. I'll cover those.
His sister is also a shameless extrovert. He's reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, he has a brother who is a known homo sapiens and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that, before his marriage, he habitually practiced celibacy. For confirmation, please see here. David in DC ( talk) 18:46, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, the admin has spoken, and it seems they don't want me to edit for five days. Devo and her sock get banned for a week. I think I'll probably give up and let the crazies and the MIT Crime Clubs Kids do what they will. Good luck, everyone. I'm afraid you'll need it. I might check back for sensible discussion, if any, or email me at the usual address. MarkBernstein ( talk) 02:46, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious." -- Brendan Gill
MB: Thank you for making these repairs. I deleted one insertion (the Silverglate material.) As I noted in my edit summary, it's in the United States v. Swartz article and, in my editorial judgment, we don't need it in two places.
For the purpose of capturing cansensus, and not with any thought of re-adding the material, would you please give us your rationale for deleting two other items? My thought is to list each, ask you to comment on each, and then let concurring (or dissenting) voices establish a consensus we can point to later, if necessary. David in DC ( talk) 17:16, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Why delete the Russia Today report about the wikileaks tweet? David in DC ( talk) 17:16, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Why delete the "Hacks and hoaxes" section? David in DC ( talk) 17:16, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Listen guys, there is a bunch of stuff in here about people criticizing the prosecutors, which is fine to a certain level. But we all need to understand a few things here which need to be said. First, the Department of Justice's prosecutors and law enforcement officers (plus some Homeland Security officers) did nothing illegal from what the sources seems to say. Second, Congress, not the President or the Attorney-General or Carmen Ortiz or Stephen Heymann, but Congress, said its OK to do what they did, i.e. seize property without a warrant, stack charges, etc. So it can obviously be argued that they did nothing wrong and at the same time its misleading for Congress in particular to lay criticisms on them.
Congress seems to be deflecting attention away from the fact that all this was done at their command; it's called "the law", not "the regulations". All the quotes from Congressman criticizing officials for carrying out what Congress said the prosecutors could/should/must do (i.e. warrantless seizures) is overkill, and plain misleading, at least when the criticism is taken to this level to drown out any information to the contrary. It leads people to believe someone other than Congress is to blame for, or can fix, this problem; that the solution is somewhere other than your local "central party committee" (or things like the Domocrats' "biennial Assembly district election meetings" in California that no one bothers to attend.) The assclown (as I always say it takes one to know one) responsible actually lives closer to your house than you think, maybe even within walking distance. When the county central committees start to make this an issue, turn on C-SPAN and watch them magically understand and start trying to change the law (they've already had their chance; don't let them; throw them out and let them be a page for the next guy if they want to be there so bad; next time don't waste our time with your nonsense hearings.)
Its not that I want my opinion included, its that I want all this POV to be diluted. It ain't the only viewpoint on the block. Int21h ( talk) 00:55, 29 May 2013 (UTC) Int21h ( talk) 01:05, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Int21h ( talk) argues that this article is unbalanced because many commentators have criticized the actions that led to Swartz’s death. It is true that few people choose a funeral to enumerate the subject’s flaws or to praise the prosecutors who led him to end his life. No doubt, Int21h ( talk) will shortly set out to remedy their omissions. (It's interesting that Int21h ( talk) appears here for the first time a few minutes after The Pajamas were unblocked.)
But Int21h ( talk) has a point: the article as it stands does not discuss Aaron Swartz’s notable weaknesses and glosses over his failings. He did not, for example, eat his vegetables, even when told to. He ate far too many hamburgers. He was always short, and early in his career was very short, regardless of the inconvenience this caused his colleagues. He could be difficult in school and was not always polite to his teachers. He showed scant interest in user interfaces, and had little sympathy for the difficulty of getting them right. He believed in bug-free code, but left us relatively little code of his own. He liked David Lodge’s novels more than they deserve. The article is POV against these and a host of other issues about which people have been oddly silent. MarkBernstein ( talk) 13:29, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 |
I understand that there are permissable uses for multiple accounts. I saw long ago that User:Dervorguilla has an info box on her user page indicating that she has more than one account. I've assumed good faith about it, until now. But I honestly never imagined she'd use an alternate account this way. I'm gob-smacked. Can this possibly be appropriate? David in DC ( talk) 02:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
I've asked about this at AN/I David in DC ( talk) 02:54, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Err, I'm a little confused now. The revised text today, consistent with the referenced sources, says: "he was charged, in Massachusetts District Court." My understanding was that the Mass. stuff took place in Superior Court, not in District Court. I'm not clear on what took place in District Court, but ultimately there was a Superior Court indictment, docket, and arraignment. Perhaps all arrests are at the District Court level even when the prosecution is not? Was he actually charged in District Court? (Was he then charged in Superior Court, too?) Perhaps the distinction between Mass. District Court (Cambridge) and Mass. Superior Court (Middlsex County) is too minor to have here and we should choose a neutral phrasing (Mass Court?). Or maybe we should get it right. I don't think there was a removal from one to the other, but I suppose I don't truly know. And this comment is based on my memory and casual glancing at things rather than rigorous research, though I'm pretty sure I didn't state anything incorrect here. jhawkinson ( talk) 02:43, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dervorguilla ( talk | contribs) at 13:40, 9 May 2013. It may differ significantly from the current revision. |
[…]
Dervorguilla, not having received the support she was looking for at AN3, has now taken this discussion to ANI. And here. And she's started making minor at
EastgateSystems, in which she's presumably interested because I work there. This is getting tiresome.
[…] MarkBernstein ( talk) 12:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
This is an
old revision of this page, as edited by
MarkBernstein (
talk |
contribs) at |
[…]
Dervorguilla, not having received the support she was looking for at AN3, has now taken this discussion to ANI. And here. And she's started making inconsequential edits at
Eastgate Systems, in which she's presumably interested because I work there. At other pages, these inconsequential edits have been the prelude to an edit war. This is getting tiresome.
[…] MarkBernstein ( talk) 12:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
(cur | prev) 14:36, 9 May 2013 MarkBernstein ( talk | contribs) . . m . . (66,220 bytes) (+116) . . ( →Restoring Silverglate) (undo)
No insertion markup, no timestamp, no edit summary. Marked as a minor edit. --
Dervorguilla (
talk)
23:49, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Dervorguilla, I think MarkBernstein's edit was just fine. He entered a comment on a talk page, and three minutes later he revised his sentence. Neither edit used an edit summary, but this is a talk page. The two edits were consecutive, and very close in time. Use of the minor tag was entirely appropriate. I would suggest a WP:WIKIBREAK may be in order here—please give it due consideration. This feels like attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill. I think most readers of this talk page would rather focus on more substantive concerns. (PS: the indentation within a talk comment is driving me crazy; I can't tell the difference between indentation-within-a-comment versus indentation-that-indicates-a-reply, which I find frustrating. Perhaps the fault is my own!) jhawkinson ( talk) 10:52, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Going through the page history, it now looks to me like we’re going to need that full-page protection. One development that changed my mind: Our third most productive contributor recently had to be given a couple of admonishments concerning poor judgment. And some of his edit summaries and comments seem to me to suggest that he is, in good faith, unable to tell when he’s edit-warring.
See
Aaron Swartz revision history:
Dervorguilla. “‘JSTOR download’ -> ‘JSTOR incident’ (no evidence supporting any implication that Swartz didn’t make large downloads at Harvard).”
MarkBernstein (RR 4). “RV because the rationale in prev comment seems wrong; what do Harvard downloads have to do with anything? Talk, please.”
Addressing
MarkBernstein in particular-
Here’s the reason I
substituted the heading “JSTOR incident” for the heading “JSTOR download”. To my knowledge, no evidence has yet been found supporting the apparent implication in the heading “JSTOR download” that Swartz never made a large JSTOR download at Harvard too.
(Mutually understood: Swartz was a fellow at Harvard and had access to JSTOR at Harvard.)
I now think I was wrong in interpreting the comment below as “grandstanding”. It may conceivably have been written in good faith. Note: The quotation refers to an 82-word passage from Silverglate’s account of his (anonymous) sources’ statements about the prosecutors.
“How many people's time do we want to consume over one editor's inexplicable … distaste [for an] innocuous … quotation? Few if any editors comprehend…. No one knows or understands…. Who can tell?” --MarkBernstein (talk) 15:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
A helpful insight:
“A wp:wikibreak might, as another editor [(
jhawkinson)] suggested below, be in order.” --MarkBernstein (talk)
11:12, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
-- Dervorguilla ( talk) 06:12, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Archival content (locked
23:13, 18 May 2013 (UTC))
D. A. Leone? Who is Leone? What does he have to do with anything?! MarkBernstein ( talk) 15:41, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
|
No, Dervorguilla, we don't agree! Your concern about this line-whatever talk-page edit is your beef alone. Major, minor, minutes, hours...who cares? It all appears to be a thinly veiled attempt at ad hominem, discrediting an editor you're unable to persuade, in a misguided attempt to get him banned, as if that's somehow going to win people over to your side in your crusade about the Silverglate quote (etc.?)—content which you've repeatedly failed to convince anyone here is better than that which other editors have proposed. Continued finger-pointing will get you nowhere. This discussion is over. —
mjb (
talk)
21:27, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Draft
==== Arrest and state charges ====
On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested near the Harvard campus by two MIT police officers and a U.S. Secret Service agent on state charges of breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a felony.
Attorney Harvey Silverglate wrote an op-ed for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly describing what some lawyers familiar with the case told him: they had expected that Middlesex County District Attorney Gerard Leone would have the breaking-and-entering charges held in abeyance (continued without a finding) for at most two years and then dismissed, should Swartz have caused no further trouble in the meantime.
On November 17, Leone had Swartz indicted by a Middlesex Superior Court grand jury on charges of breaking-and-entering with intent, larceny of electronic data, and unauthorized access to a computer network. On December 16, he had the charges dismissed.
Swartz’s law firm said federal prosecutors had been running the investigation since he was first arrested:
The lead prosecutor in Mr. Swartz’s [federal] case, AUSA Stephen Heymann, ... and
[Secret Service]Agent Pickett directed and controlled the investigation of Mr. Swartz from the time of [his] arrest on January 6, 2011.... Heymann’s involvement in the case had commenced very early in the investigation....
^ …
^ Silverglate, Harvey (January 23, 2013).
"The Swartz suicide and the sick culture of the DOJ". Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Archived from
the original on 2013-01-24. "It was anticipated that the state charge would be continued without a finding, with Swartz duly admonished and then returned to civil society to continue his pioneering electronic work in a less legally questionable manner. Tragedy intervened when Ortiz’s office took over the case to send ‘a message.’"
^ McCullagh, Declan (January 25, 2013),
"Swartz didn't face prison until feds took over case, report says". c|net. Retrieved 2013-02-07.
^ …
-- Dervorguilla ( talk) 22:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC) 23:08, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
I declare that I do not intend to do any edit-warring. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 09:56, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
"I declare that I do not intend to do any edit-warring. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 09:56, 21 April 2013 (UTC)"
Restoring the Ocaasi– Jeff G.– Shearonink– MarkBernstein– Dervorguilla consensus text of February 7 (reverted by David in DC on February 8).
Ocaasi has asserted that the rephrased text is “more neutral” than the old MB–DDC text.
“Rephrase, a bit more neutrally.” — Ocaasi.
Ocaasi, Jeff G, Shearonink, MB, and Dervorguilla appear to have agreed that the old material by MB and DDC ought to be rephrased more neutrally. See page history.
About ten hours after Ocaasi published the consensus text, it was reverted. By DDC. He didn’t disagree that the old material was less neutral; rather, he said:
“With 1 dissenting voice, talk page consensus favors including this material.” — DDC.
So far, no editor appears to have disagreed with Ocaasi’s assertion that the consensus text is more neutral. All editors: If you think it isn’t, or if you’d rather have it restored anyway, could you give your reasoning here? -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 08:37, 30 April 2013 (UTC) 13:53, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
In Arrests, charges and indictments, I’m going to be substituting the “more neutral” passage written by sysop Ocaasi (16:30, 7 February 2013).
According to unnamed lawyers familiar with the case, the Middlesex County District Attorney had planned to resolve Swartz’s case with a stern warning and a continuance without a finding; if Swartz got into no further trouble with the law, the charges would have been dropped, the case dismissed, and Swartz "returned to civil society to continue his pioneering electronic work in a less legally questionable manner."
So far no one’s had a bad word to say about the language or about the admin who wrote it. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 05:04, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Removing the CNET reference, as suggested by Seth Finkelstein:
== c|net and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly are reliable sources ==
[…] Can someone explain why we're substituting our own opinions for what's been published in c|net, a reliable secondary source. -- David in DC 01:34, 7 February 2013
The McCullagh article isn’t a reliable source for BDP. It was not fact-checked by CNET. --Dervorguilla 06:32, 7 February 2013
[…] I would suggest that CNET be left out of it, since that's just an echo of the original post.[…] -- Seth Finkelstein 08:41, 7 February 2013
So far, no editor has disagreed that some of the statements in the McCullagh article about the Silverglate op-ed are false. All editors: If you believe that the article was indeed fact-checked, could you give your reasoning here? -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 09:16, 30 April 2013 (UTC) 13:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
I have no idea what you're talking about here. These pseudo-legalism is at best obscure. Mass Lawyers Weekly stands by its article, which should be included here. I can't for the life of me fathom what bothers you so much about it; it appears to me to simply state a fact that everyone understands but for with Mass Lawyers Weekly provided a solid, though off-the-record, source. MarkBernstein ( talk) 09:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
WP:QUOTE. General guidelines
“Never quote a false statement without immediately saying the statement is false.”
Here’s an authoritative source relevant to Silverglate’s statement.
Docket, United States v. Swartz,
No. 11-CR-10260
The defendant’s lead attorney (Elliot Peters) says:
“On the morning of January 4, … the Secret Service assumed control of the investigation.… On January 5, … [MIT’s] Program Manager of Scholarly Publishing & Licensing [told MIT’s Senior Network & Information Security Analyst] … that it was ‘now a Federal case’.”
The Assistant U.S. Attorney (Stephen Heymann) admits:
“Government counsel did, indeed, have [its alleged] chronology slightly wrong. The equipment was held in evidence by the MIT Police (rather than Cambridge Police) from its recovery on January 6 until February 3, when it was picked up and transported by [a Secret Service special agent] and [a City detective] to the Cambridge Police; … the Secret Service … t[ook] custody of the evidence on February 25.”
Opposing Peters’s motion to suppress, he says:
“The equipment was seized and held [by MIT Police] initially as evidence in a state case.”
(Yet the state prosecutor didn’t get to draw a grand jury for the state case until four months after Heymann drew one for the Federal case.)
If you believe Heymann, the equipment was being held as evidence for the Federal case as of February 25. If you believe Peters or MIT, January 6.
Does this evidence material indicate that Harvey’s allegation is more likely true or false? --
Dervorguilla (
talk)
22:22, 10 May 2013 (UTC) 23:20, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Who is "Harvey"?
In any case, none of this has any bearing on the Silverglate quotation. Silverglate reports what a lawyer with knowledge of the matter said. That is not in dispute. You think that this knowledgable lawyer was wrong, but we can't know that -- and we certainly have no reliable published source to confirm it. The quotation was published. It has not been retracted. All this controversy about who was "in control" of what on which date is, at present, original research and is, in the nature of the thing, subjective and subject to ambiguity. The fact Silverglate reports -- the statement of his source -- is true. Others may disagree with Silverglate's source -- you apparently do disagree for some reason -- but that is neither here nor there. MarkBernstein ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:10, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
The Silvergate quote is a RS that explains the difference between a state-only case and a full federal case, and it comports with our understanding of the case. The chronology is an entirely separate issue-- it had become a federal investigation prior to the arrest, but that doesn't automatically mean federal charges will be filed. Silvergate explains to us what it looks like if the Ortiz/Heymann team had exercised their discretion in the opposite direction. -- HectorMoffet ( talk) 03:57, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Is this subsection adding useful information to the subject? These posthumous hacks and hoaxes were not conducted by the subject, or with his knowledge or permission. Nor do they add significantly to the subject's notability. Perhaps they belong elsewhere -- on the page for Anonymous, perhaps -- but do they belong here? MarkBernstein ( talk) 21:09, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't disagree that Swartz will have a lasting influence; at the recent Web Science conference, several speakers felt comfortable in assuming that a room full of academic computer scientists drawn from the global research community would immediately recognize his name. But I'm not sure that some other people's hacks and pranks are going to be a significant part of that legacy. Nonetheless, if we think this section might be useful, let's keep it and revisit it in a year. MarkBernstein ( talk) 21:52, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
As suggested by MarkBernstein, I’m taking the ‘Salon’ dispute here. The current material is about a mural of Swartz that was reported in at least one reliable press source (Salon). Unlike the other material in this section ("In the press"), the press item is not about Swartz or about anything Swartz did. -- Dervorguilla ( talk) 21:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Please note: Edits to this article are again being discussed at the edit-warring noticeboard. David in DC ( talk) 10:48, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the kind comments on my talk page and elsewhere.
I've done what little I could to save this page -- and wikipedia. I think it's clear that it's beyond me. Link: "They Hate Us"
I am tempted to spend an hour or so this weekend with this page to undertake a wholesale revision during the brief interval where we are, at least notionally, free from The Pajamas. The idea here would be to have one short-lived draft of the article as it might have been had we not spent months and months defending every tiny detail from relentless sniping. It will shine for a few minutes, The Pajamas will revert it, that will be that.
I'll probably think better of this and watch the Red Sox - Indians game instead, or add a feature to Tinderbox.
If you have ideas for what ought to be done or sources you'd include if only The Pajamas weren't going to come after you, I'd welcome them. Don't discuss here, please: we've had enough talk page discussion for several lifetimes. Email me: bernstein at eastgate.com. (I'll at least acknowledge promptly, so if you don't hear back, it's in the spam filter. Ping me. MarkBernstein ( talk) 13:16, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
What the tedious and unnecessary wrangling over the Silverglate quotation has tended to obscure is that the article is rather badly out of balance. The subject of the article was, after all, a remarkable (and remarkably young) software innovator, someone who in his late teens and early twenties had already been at the center of two widely-used internet standards, had built an internet startup and sold his stake in it for a very large sum of money, and who had since devoted his time to political causes and to fusing internet activism and politics. What we have on the page is a guy who did some stuff before his arrest, prosecution, suicide, and the controversies that arose in the wake of his death. The wikipedia page, in short, is the story of an alleged criminal who incidentally did some things before his arrest.
Though one obvious solution to this would be to rebalance the article by trimming legal detail, that approach seems very unlikely to prove tenable. We have spent months arguing over a single innocuous quotation!
Another solution, previously proposed here, was to move the entire discussion of the PACER and JSTOR prosecutions to a dedicated page, leaving no more than a sentence here to state that they happened and to provide a link. This page could then proceed directly to the eulogies and other sequelae. I fear that this would be a continuing headache, as new editors might well arrive and set out to rebuild the entire section, reopening the argument again and again.
Might we achieve better balance by making a more concerted effort to explain just what Swartz contributed in his technical work, and by seeking out remarks about its influence with the same energy we have spent seeking remarks about (for example) the appropriateness of various charges? This would leave us with an even longer page, to be sure, but one that has a more intelligent balance between the subject's accomplishments and his prosecution. MarkBernstein ( talk) 15:18, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
As the person who initially proposed forking the article for balance, I'm in favor of it, but with two reservations.
First, I didn't like that all that was left in the main article was a teaser in the lead section and a {{main}} link in the body of the article. A summary, even if it's 80% identical to the teaser in the lead, is necessary; people shouldn't have to read the other article to understand the basic issues in that aspect of Swartz's life.
I do understand the concern that people will be tempted to expand the hell out of any summary they're given, but that's how it always is when forking articles. The challenge is making the summary be terse and general enough that no one can really argue about it, yet also make it contain some useful information. The stability of the summary in the lead is testament to the fact that it can be done.
Second, as Dervorguilla alluded to, there's a problem in that there are two topics covered in the section in question: the state case and the federal case. They are intertwined, of course, but we have decided—though not irreversibly—that the title of the article to which this content is being relegated is the name of the federal case. If it is really going to be all about both cases, and if it's going to include the amount of posthumous commentary that it does (something not considered ideal in case articles), then I feel that we should retitle the article to something more general ("Aaron Swartz, JSTOR, and MIT legal issues" or whatever), awkward as it may end up being. That would be more consistent with how these situations are handled on Wikipedia. However I could be persuaded otherwise.
One thing, though: I don't think the state case is notable enough for its own article. What other articles will ever link to it? And what would be in it that wouldn't also be covered again when giving background for the federal case?
Regardless, I don't think the bold edit was out of line. It just needs some refinement. — mjb ( talk) 04:22, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
OK. I've heard no reply in three days, so I've tried again. This time I left more of a summary on this page, per comments above. I've also tried to make sure no refs are lost, leaving some paragraphs over-sourced. I'm hopeful that others will now edit my work. And hopeful that it won't just be blanket reverted. I think this is an improvement, giving us hope for a stable Aaron Swartz page, and moving the material that may be contentious to a stand-alone page. I don't think the ultimately-dismissed state cases are out of place on the new page. They explain the activity and set the stage. But, I'm hoping, that's a discussion for the talk page over there. David in DC ( talk) 17:58, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
All of the sources refer to "statements" or "rulings"; they do not simply state suicide as a 100% certain fact. So, I have changed the sentence to include the word reportedly.
May122013 ( talk) 13:25, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
An editor has now gone completely beyond the pale with his increasingly disruptive and argumentative edits. He has replaced "penned an article" with "wrote an account". He's provided no proof that Ms. Norton did not use a pen for her first draft and deviously conflated the concepts of "account" and "article".
Such behavior must be eradicated. I think each editor to this page should choose a notice board and file a complaint. Some obvious places would be WP:External_links/Noticeboard, WP:Non-free content review, WP:Fringe theories/Noticeboard and WP:WikiProject on open proxies. I'll cover those.
His sister is also a shameless extrovert. He's reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, he has a brother who is a known homo sapiens and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that, before his marriage, he habitually practiced celibacy. For confirmation, please see here. David in DC ( talk) 18:46, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, the admin has spoken, and it seems they don't want me to edit for five days. Devo and her sock get banned for a week. I think I'll probably give up and let the crazies and the MIT Crime Clubs Kids do what they will. Good luck, everyone. I'm afraid you'll need it. I might check back for sensible discussion, if any, or email me at the usual address. MarkBernstein ( talk) 02:46, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious." -- Brendan Gill
MB: Thank you for making these repairs. I deleted one insertion (the Silverglate material.) As I noted in my edit summary, it's in the United States v. Swartz article and, in my editorial judgment, we don't need it in two places.
For the purpose of capturing cansensus, and not with any thought of re-adding the material, would you please give us your rationale for deleting two other items? My thought is to list each, ask you to comment on each, and then let concurring (or dissenting) voices establish a consensus we can point to later, if necessary. David in DC ( talk) 17:16, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Why delete the Russia Today report about the wikileaks tweet? David in DC ( talk) 17:16, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Why delete the "Hacks and hoaxes" section? David in DC ( talk) 17:16, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Listen guys, there is a bunch of stuff in here about people criticizing the prosecutors, which is fine to a certain level. But we all need to understand a few things here which need to be said. First, the Department of Justice's prosecutors and law enforcement officers (plus some Homeland Security officers) did nothing illegal from what the sources seems to say. Second, Congress, not the President or the Attorney-General or Carmen Ortiz or Stephen Heymann, but Congress, said its OK to do what they did, i.e. seize property without a warrant, stack charges, etc. So it can obviously be argued that they did nothing wrong and at the same time its misleading for Congress in particular to lay criticisms on them.
Congress seems to be deflecting attention away from the fact that all this was done at their command; it's called "the law", not "the regulations". All the quotes from Congressman criticizing officials for carrying out what Congress said the prosecutors could/should/must do (i.e. warrantless seizures) is overkill, and plain misleading, at least when the criticism is taken to this level to drown out any information to the contrary. It leads people to believe someone other than Congress is to blame for, or can fix, this problem; that the solution is somewhere other than your local "central party committee" (or things like the Domocrats' "biennial Assembly district election meetings" in California that no one bothers to attend.) The assclown (as I always say it takes one to know one) responsible actually lives closer to your house than you think, maybe even within walking distance. When the county central committees start to make this an issue, turn on C-SPAN and watch them magically understand and start trying to change the law (they've already had their chance; don't let them; throw them out and let them be a page for the next guy if they want to be there so bad; next time don't waste our time with your nonsense hearings.)
Its not that I want my opinion included, its that I want all this POV to be diluted. It ain't the only viewpoint on the block. Int21h ( talk) 00:55, 29 May 2013 (UTC) Int21h ( talk) 01:05, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Int21h ( talk) argues that this article is unbalanced because many commentators have criticized the actions that led to Swartz’s death. It is true that few people choose a funeral to enumerate the subject’s flaws or to praise the prosecutors who led him to end his life. No doubt, Int21h ( talk) will shortly set out to remedy their omissions. (It's interesting that Int21h ( talk) appears here for the first time a few minutes after The Pajamas were unblocked.)
But Int21h ( talk) has a point: the article as it stands does not discuss Aaron Swartz’s notable weaknesses and glosses over his failings. He did not, for example, eat his vegetables, even when told to. He ate far too many hamburgers. He was always short, and early in his career was very short, regardless of the inconvenience this caused his colleagues. He could be difficult in school and was not always polite to his teachers. He showed scant interest in user interfaces, and had little sympathy for the difficulty of getting them right. He believed in bug-free code, but left us relatively little code of his own. He liked David Lodge’s novels more than they deserve. The article is POV against these and a host of other issues about which people have been oddly silent. MarkBernstein ( talk) 13:29, 29 May 2013 (UTC)