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Ward Churchill misconduct issues (
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Page was speedy deleted with the rationale that it would probably attract
WP:BLP violations. However, I did not see any reason for the page to be speedy deleted (maybe AFD'ed or certain parts removed). Therefore I feel it should be undeleted and listed on AFD.
ugen64 16:21, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- overturn deletion.
Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:23, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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neutralEndorse. The article has a long history of persistent editors inserting libelous or near-libelous material. A version minus all the soap-box rallying against Churchill would be worthwhile and encyclopedic. But it's hard to see exactly how that would come about as long as editors like Verklempt and Getaway are insistent on inserting POV rants.
LotLE×
talk 17:00, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- I challenge you to document even one example of me introducing any libelous material whatsover. You are defaming my editing without even bothering to try to justify your attacks with evidence.
Verklempt 21:44, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn It's very difficult to make this judgement without being able to see the article in its most recent state but the preponderance of the evidence does seem to support the nominator's assertions. --
ElKevbo 17:46, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Endorse my own deletion. My rationale was not that the page might attract BLP violations, but rather that the entire article was nothing more than a coatrack upon which countless BLP violations were already being hung. Material relevant to the topic that does not violate BLP should be incorporated in the
Ward Churchill article, rather than creating a ghetto in which we ignore the contributions of those trying to grind an axe. Among the violations present in the revision as deleted I see: lots of uncited passive tense "was found to have stopped beating his wife" type language, original research synthesis (particularly in the "Questioned Ethnicity" section). That this happens isn't really a surprise: the article's topic itself is basically an invitation to focus undue weight on specific aspect of a living person's career. It is entirely appropriate that this issues be discussed, properly cited, and in a proper way, in his biography. But this particular article is as unsalvageable as would be an article entitled "Yassir Arafat hygiene problems"
Nandesuka 18:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Nothing you have said seems to be a valid criteria for speedy deletion. If you believe this article should be deleted or merged, please go through our normal, community-driven processes. Short-circuiting those processes through the use of admin powers is unbecoming an admin (or any editor) and weakens our community as it seems to say that you can't trust us to reach the "right" conclusion. --
ElKevbo 19:21, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Please refer to
CSD G10, which I believe outlines the issues here fairly well.
Nandesuka 19:48, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Sorry; we still disagree. :) --
ElKevbo 19:54, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- My motivation is that the article was a BLP violation in and of itself, not that someone might make it worse.
Nandesuka 16:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- You have yet to provide any specific examples of even one passage that was a violation, much less provide evidence that the entire article was a violation.
Verklempt 20:36, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- I actually did give specific examples; I simply did it without quoting the text of the article, because it's inappropriate to republish such material in discussing it. I am, however, happy to discuss the issue in more detail over email with any editor who wants me to be more explicit.
Nandesuka 22:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- No, you waved your hands and claimed that the entire article was a "coatrack," which is patently false. However, because you have deleted the evidence, and because you refuse to provide any evidence here where it counts, others now have to take your word that what you are saying is true. If you were willing to engage in good faith discussion, you should have taken your issues to the article's Talk page instead of deleting the entire article.
Verklempt 23:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- I have offered to provide a complete accounting of the offending material via email (and have already provided that accounting to more than one editor). No one has to take my word for anything. I'm simply declining to republish the malicious material here, which is perfectly appropriate given the egregiousness with which the article violates our policy on
biographies of living persons. That you are so eager for me to republish that material here, given your intimate involvement in both the establishment of and the writing of the coatrack speaks volumes.
Nandesuka 23:36, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- You misstate the issue. There is little or no material in that article that violates policy. An articulate person would not have to republish the material here to make an argument about it, but they would need to describe it in more detail than you have even attempted. The major weakness in your action is that you could have easily deleted the offending sentence. But instead you deleted the entire article. And you refuse to acknowledge even the possibility that you may have overreached.
Verklempt 02:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn and list per ElKevbo. I doubt very much that I would !vote to Keep this article in an AfD, but the Speedy seems out of process. Unusual situations may arise due to BLP that require expedited procedures, but this does not seem to be one of them. The deleting admin's comment about a POV fork is certainly worthy of bringing up at the AfD. After the vast discussion in mainstream media, It seems doubtful that Ward Churchill should be seen as a private person who might suffer from unwanted publicity on Wikipedia. We still have to be alert for defamation and remove it promptly. Decisions like Nandesuka's might appear to save time for admins, but I doubt that a policy debate to add it as a CSD criterion would succeed. The exception would be too open-ended.
EdJohnston 20:00, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- overturn deletion. Deleter's rationale is too vague and non-specific. Can he cite any passages that were not well-sourced? He hasn't yet. Deleter recommends integrating the material into the main biography. I agree with that strategy, but it was a rabid pro-Churchill POV-monger who insisted on segregating Churchill's misconduct into a separate article to begin with. And since the main article is locked down due to a troll, there is no way to reintegrate the material there. By deleting this article, the material has disappeared altogether. I agree that the page makes the subject look very bad, but there is copious published evidence of this person's corruption. The citations are nearly all to mainstream newspapers and academic journals.
Verklempt 20:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- This editor is exactly the problem, and it is apparent in his "overturn" vote: Verklempt is on WP principally to "spread the word" of Churchill's alleged corruption. An article whose entire purpose is to smear a living individual really doesn't belong on WP.
LotLE×
talk 20:48, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- You are the person who created the Misconduct Issues article, as part of your ongoing program to minimize and segregate Churchill's misconduct out of the main bio. Now you're taking this opportunity to do away with any discussion of Churchill's misconduct altogether, by advocating deletion of your own creation. I have no problem whatsoever with reintegrating this material into the main article, but that alternative does not justify the speedy delete of the perfectly well-sourced Misconduct Issues article that you yourself created.
Verklempt 21:38, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- If a particular editor is the problem then we should deal with him or her, not the article(s) he or she happens to frequent. --
ElKevbo 20:57, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn. The problem here is with the editor, not the article.
Evouga 00:11, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- overturn BLP does not mean we delete articles because someone might add BLP violating material to them. A speedy like this seems to justify the fears of some of us about the arb com decision, that the policy would be applied based solely upon the personal views of an individual admin.
DGG (
talk) 01:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn deletion because of what
Verklempt wrote. Churchill cheerleaders were using the ‘misconduct’ subpage to bury legitimate criticism from respected sources. For example, one pro-WC editor insisted that a major newspaper investigation proving that Ward doesn’t have any Indian ancestors should be deleted from the main page because the material was, “already more accurately discussed in sibling articles”
[2]. I think the pages should be merged, but the speedy deletion needs to be overturned. Especially while the main page is locked.
Steve8675309 01:55, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn. We can not start deleting articles because someone might add BLP violations, or even because someone is likely to. We especially can not start speedy deleting them. -
Amarkov
moo! 02:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn. Although I can see problems with this article beginning with the title, I agree with the above that the mere possibility of BLP issues is not sufficiently grave to warrant speedy deletion of an entire article. --
Dhartung |
Talk 07:35, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- It's not really the "mere possibility" though. Three editors—Verklempt, Getaway, and Steve8675309 (whom I didn't mention earlier, since he's been quiet lately other than his vote here)—have dominated the article for over a year, making sure that semi-libelous coatrack material remain in the article, and make up its bulk. I've been one of very few editors who have worked hard to stop the violations from being even worse than they were, but it's almost a fulltime job to combat a few editors with this persistent anti-Churchill agenda. It's a bio subject that attracts prominent detractors, and many fewer netural editors like myself (read the insults to me for remaining neutral through the article history, for example).
LotLE×
talk 16:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- It is neutral editors like me who have been able to minimize Lulu's rabid pro-Churchill agenda so far. Although with the deletion of this article, nearly all of the mainstream newspaper and academic journal explications of Churchill's misconduct have now been excised from Wikipedia. As long as this article stays deleted, the pro-Churchill POV-warriors such as Lulu have won.
Verklempt 19:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Lulu, you once added an unreferenced claim to the main page that WC wrote “hundreds of published essays”
[3]. When I asked you to provide a reliable source per
WP:V, you called my request “idiotic”
[4]. Were you “remaining neutral through the article history” when you did that?
Steve8675309 01:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Endorse deletion. This is a textbook case of a
WP:UNDUE violation of BLP policy. This loks very much like a POV fork intended to allow a "controversy" section to grow beyond all sense - the "issues" article is 5,800 words to the main article's 5,100. Nobody's asking to have it deleted because people might start adding BLP violations, it is a BLP violation, in that it gives massively more weight to this one controversy than we give to the whole of the rest of the guy's life put together.
Guy (
Help!) 16:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Endorse deletion I too believe that it is a text book case. The article it was forked from is a coatrack as well.
Albion moonlight 23:02, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Thank you. For a minute I was concerned that I was perhaps not speaking English, since everyone else has been ignoring this point.
Nandesuka 16:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- You have yet to provide any specific examples of even one passage that was a violation, much less provide evidence that the entire article was a violation.
Verklempt 20:36, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- If your complaint is that I'm not going to republish uncited insults against a living person here, I don't really know what else to say other than "Yeah, so?" I am, however, happy to take the specific fictitious examples I gave above and link them to specific words in the deleted article over email, rather than putting them on any google-searchable and cachable Wikipedia page.
Nandesuka 22:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Your original justification for deleting the article was that the entire article was a violation. Now you are changing your story, in claiming that your beef was with uncited insults. If there were uncited insults on the page -- and I don't recall any -- they would be a tiny fraction of the page's content. You should have dealt with those sentences individually as an editor. Instead, you abused your power as an administrator by deleting the entire article.
Verklempt 23:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- There is definitely room for editors to disagree that this is inherently a BLP issue. This particular case has garnered significant attention and raised many issues related to academic freedom and legislative involvement in public universities that extend well beyond Ward Churchill. That this incident has garnered more attention than the rest of Churchill's activities appears to be supported by the facts. I remain disappointed that administrators are using BLP to effect editorial decisions. --
ElKevbo 16:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- So would you think that an article entitled "Hillary Clinton hygiene issues" would be permissible? I'm sure I could find relevant citations in the major media that could form the basis of such an article. That, to me, is the issue.
Nandesuka 16:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- With all due respect, that is a ridiculous analogy. Churchill is a public figure largely because of his personal corruption. It's documented in several academic journals, many mainstream news articles, and by a number of committees at the University of Colorado, all of whom have unanimously found him guilty of research misconduct. You, on the other hand, have yet to document even a single policy violation on the page you deleted. Waving your hands and vaguely alluding to BLP does not substitute for a reasoned argument from evidence.
Verklempt 19:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- I would be amenable to changing to title of the article if that is a point of contention. But speedily deleting the article is not how one advocates for a title change. :) --
ElKevbo 18:40, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- It was an attack article that violated the WP:BLP policy both by serving as a platform for egregious (and uncited) non-NPOV attacks on the living subject, and by focusing undue weight on this one controversy. Changing the title, frankly, isn't really the point. You can't put a dress on a pig and then call her the prom queen.
Nandesuka 23:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- First, you don't seem to have read the article very carefully. It covers a variety of controversies, not just one. Second, the vast majority of the article cited to mainstream newspapers, academic journals, and similar reputable sources. Your statement that it was uncited is simply false. Third, I agree that the article should never have been segregated out of the main article, but that could be easily solved without deleting it. The person who segregated the article was one who was trying to bury the data for POV purposes, and now it looks like he has succeeded through your actions.
Verklempt 02:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- To say he's a public figure because of research misconduct is a strongly POV statement. Personally, I think its just the other way round, that the research misconduct issues would never have arisen had he not made obnoxious public statements--but I know that such is only one POV, and I wouldn't impose it on the encyclopedia on the basis of my understanding of the matter.
DGG (
talk) 19:51, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Good point. I think that few outside his field would have cared about his research misconduct had it not been for his insults to the 9/11 victims. But on the other hand, the story of his insults would not have had such legs if all the data about his corruption had not come out in the wake. So it's a feedback process. But whichever variable has the stronger causation, certainly the news about his misconduct are a core part of his bio -- especially since CU will be firing him next Tuesday for his misconduct. And on that day people will be streaming to Wikipedia to learn more about his misconduct, only to find the page deleted. Far be it for me to assume bad faith or engage in conspiracy theories, but the timing of this speedy deletion could not be more POV in its effect, regardless of its intention.
Verklempt 20:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- I am so very happy that you're not going to assume bad faith or engage in conspiracy theories. That would be pretty stupid behavior, if you were to do it, which I'm sure you are not.
Nandesuka 22:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Let me reiterate -- the effect of your actions is POV, regardless of your intent. Your sarcasm does not address the issue.
Verklempt 23:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Keep POV fork deleted. Seriously. Do. It's one big BLP vio just the way it is, starting with the title. I don't see what, under our BLP principles, Nandesuka could have done except speedy it. Attacks on living people are supposed to be removed speedily. We're not supposed to let them hang about in article space or anywhere else on the site while someone "advocates for title change" or discusses it in AfD or whatever.
Bishonen |
talk 12:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC).
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- It would be trivial to change the title. As always, the pro-delete voters wave their hands without bothering to detail a single specific violation.
Verklempt 19:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Endorse: First, it's a POV fork, which is a regular deletion guideline violation. Second, it is an attack page, which is a speedy delete criterion. Third, it is an edit war in progress, which is a policy violation. Fourth, any listing on AfD would merely be a repeat of the astroturf sod battles and result in a reappearance here. Therefore, I endorse the speedy deletion as valid. As for the people who are unhappy about the deletion because their points of view no longer have a home, they can either edit the main Ward Churchill article or be satisfied with venues other than Wikipedia.
Geogre 12:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- What is your evidence that this was an attack page? In fact, the page was created by a pro-Churchill POV-warrior as a ruse to segregate discussion of Churchill's research misconduct away from the main bio.
Verklempt 19:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- This is true of course... but I beg, beg, beg all the editors here to keep an eye on the main
Ward Churchill biography. It's protected right now, but the very second it gets unprotected, Verklempt, Getaway, and Steve8675309, are going to add 5800 words of attack to accompany the 5100 words of current biography (taking the lengths of the parent and child as rules-of-thumb). I tend to think the main bio is already slanted a bit anti-Churchill, but nothing vaguely close to what is certain to happen if the above editors are allowed to "reintegrate" the attack material.
LotLE×
talk 16:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn deletion because of what
Verklempt wrote. --
Getaway 18:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Endorse. A criticism section for a controversial living person is reasonable, but when it grows to its own article, and is larger than the actual biography, it becomes a
WP:BLP issue.
Jayjg
(talk) 20:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- What about cases in which the living person is notable largely because of his or her misconduct? According to your rationale, Wikipedia cannot have articles on living criminals, because that would violate BLP. Churchill is not entirely notable for his misconduct, but his misconduct is certainly a major component of his notoriety. Since you have locked down the main bio and endorsed the delete here, I would ask that you unlock the main article so that the crucial cites can be reintegrated there. tnx
Verklempt 21:06, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Endorse deletion. This was an attack page. We already have an article on the subject, and another one on his 9/11 essay, as well as articles on other papers or books of his, so yet another one is overkill, and the creation of a BLP POV fork is never a good idea.
SlimVirgin
(talk)
(contribs) 13:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Comment. There’s a link to the deteled page here
[5]. And here
[6]. Where are the “uncited insults”? Where is the “libelous” material?
Steve8675309 14:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn. If Lulu created the fork, moved all of the criticisms of Churchill there, and then deleted it, it is clearly an attempt to push a PoV on Wikipedia. The
coatrack argument (an essay, not a guideline or policy) is not particularly persuasive here, as Churchill has a long history of deliberately attracting attention, and pointing out the inconsistencies and outright falsehoods he has propagated over the years is not a coatrack. Either restore the article or reintegrate its contents into the main Churchill page. The page could be renamed as
Criticism of Ward Churchill or something similar, which certainly has precedents in Wikipedia (run a search on "Criticism of" as see what you find; religions, concepts, groups, and individuals all on the first page).
Horologium
t-
c 18:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Lulu didn't delete the article. I did. I don't particularly have an opinion on Ward Churchill one way or the other. What I have an opinion about is that "But I think he's a bad person" isn't a valid reason to violate our policies on biographies of living persons.
Nandesuka 19:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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- You functioned as Lulu's meatpuppet by deleting from Wikipedia most of the evidence of Churchill's misconduct -- which is what he's most known for. And you have yet to point to a single specific policy violation on that page. Instead, you wave your hands while refusing to point to any actual evidence.
Verklempt 22:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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- I doubt I've exchanged 10 words with Lulu on Wikipedia. Unless you're using a definition of "meatpuppet" along the lines of "everyone who disagrees with me is a meatpuppet." A number of respected admins and editors have endorsed the deletion here. Are they meatpuppets too?
Nandesuka 20:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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- I do not accuse you of conspiring with Lulu. Instead, I point out that your deletion of this article has completed Lulu's program to excise well-sourced information about Churchill's misconduct from Wikipedia. And you have yet to give an explicit rationale, by pointing to any specific violations in the article itself.
Verklempt 22:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Endorse Too many BLP concerns and controversies can be mentioned and put in perspective in main article.--
MONGO 20:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn Unjustified, speculative deletion.
Golfcam 22:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Endorse. Between the obvious forking, attempt to add undue weight, and probably BLP concerns, obvious, really. --
Calton |
Talk 01:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Note that the fork was created by an editor user to move information he didn't like out of the main article. That same editor now supports the deletion of the article, not an overturn and merge. If the same were to occur with (as an obvious example)
Rush Limbaugh, I am quite sure that the outrage would be deafening. Right now, all of the sourced material on this subject has vanished from Wikipedia; at the very least, an overturn and merge should occur. Of course, since it was nuked, it's impossible for the unwashed masses without admin tools to view the article and its history, and the repeated assertions of BLP violations make it fairly likely that a request to restore the history would be rejected.
Wikipedia:Content forking#Articles whose subject is a POV makes it clear that articles of this type are acceptable, as the title makes it clear that it is not a full biography of Ward Churchill. Renaming it as
Criticism of Ward Churchill would make it even more clear. The problem with Churchill is that (like criminals such as Jeffrey Dahmer), most of his notability stems from his negative behavior. He doesn't publish often in peer-reviewed journals, which limits his notability as a scholar.
Horologium
t-
c 17:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Endorse. I'm flabbergasted to see so many overturn votes in so obvious a case. --
Ghirla
-трёп- 12:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
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- It might be helpful to explain why it's so obvious a case when there are many upstanding editors who have come to a different conclusion. --
ElKevbo 14:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn, total misinterpretation of what BLP and coatrack mean. It would be a coatrack if the article claimed to be a full biography and simply listed a bunch of problems. Instead, this documents the numerous criticisms and controversies that surround a controversial figure. I checked the deleted article and everything appears to be well sourced and neutrally phrased on a quick skim, so there's nothing that violates BLP. Maybe it needs some editing, but not speedy deletion.
Night Gyr (
talk/
Oy) 14:42, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn Yet another attempt to misuse the delete button as a
memory hole by the BLP mafia. ~
trialsanderrors 17:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Comment these accusations of misconduct have now
led to churchill's firing. The information is tremendously relevant.
Night Gyr (
talk/
Oy) 19:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn well cited, no BLP issues here. Not a case of undue weight, givent the attention media and academic, that has been focused on these issues, as demonstrated by the citaitons. There is clear policy support for "criticism of" sections of articles, including biographic articles, and for spinning these off when need be, as others hve shown above. Churchill is largely, although not exclusivly, notable for the issues discussed in this article.
DES
(talk) 02:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
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- Overturn. Speedy delete is the nuclear option, and the admin should have considered other alternatives, such as a proper nomination for deletion with proper discussion and so forth. At the very least a page protect. To me this smacks of bias under the guise of protecting Wikipedia policy of BLP. Note that there have been other articles (like
Noelle Bush) that flew under the radar for a long time before it went through a deletion proceedure (and not a speedy delete, either, I might add). More and more I see admins being quite selective in their (sometimes overreaching) authority.
Alcarillo 03:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
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- As for whether this article should exist, let's table that for a proper discussion after this speedy delete is overturned.
Alcarillo
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