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

The result of the discussion was: keep. Policies that apply to articles, like BLP, apply to all spaces. At the time of closing any problematic material looks to have been removed. There is no policy that says something must be deleted because it once contained policy violating material. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 13:12, 7 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-04-25/Disinformation report

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-04-25/Disinformation report ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)​

A "disinformation report" about a recently deceased editor who made the grand total of 45 edits to enwiki, the last one in 2013 (i.e. years before Trump was actually President), and about someone else where no indication is given at all of what her enwiki account was or which edits she made, but only allegations about her public life with no reference to Wikipedia at all.

This is all of such a trivial nature that it doesn't look like an informative page about a major problem, but some petty vengeance against a political enemy via a recently deceased person who didn't even work for Trump during the presidency, and someone who the Signpost apparently tried to out (judging from the comments beneath the article and the redactions done afterwards), but who has in the current version nothing to do with Wikipedia. This belongs on some personal off-wiki blog, but has no business being hosted on a quasi-official Wikipedia page. Fram ( talk) 13:41, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I'm the author of the piece an the editor-in-chief of The Signpost. I'll remind folks here that Signpost articles are not in article space, but in WikiProject space and the rules that seem to apply are essentially the same as those which apply on talkpages.

There are 2 parts of the Signpost article. The 1st 2 sections about Mmartinnyc who declared - on two different talkpages - that he was Michael Martin and worked for the Trump Organization (TTO) and was representing Ivanka Trump's wishes. On one page he calls himself "director of interactive." Michael Martin died in November 2020 and his obituary identifies him as a long-term TTO employee and director of digital marketing. Martin made these 2 paid editing declarations himself - they have not been redacted - the obit confirms that he was what Mmartinnyc claimed he was.

Now if anybody believes that the future president's director of digital marketing operating under Ivanka Trump's direct supervision is trivial - they are free to ignore the article. I, and I believe, a great many Wikipedians would disagree. A billionaire/TV star/politician is paying somebody to edit Ivanka Trump's article, Eric Trump's, Donald Trump, Jr,'s, and (just once) Donald Trump's article - I'll guarantee you, lots of folks are interested in this. Somebody who is not interested (below), claims that The Signpost cannot publish this because it violates talk page rules about "not a forum". The Signpost has been publishing for 16 years now and has always provided a forum for Wikipedians to write, at length if needed, on the important Wiki-issues of the day.

(more later) Smallbones_{( smalltalk)} 15:25, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

If someone had posted the text of that page on a talk page, I would have reverted it per WP:NOTFORUM. Fram ( talk) 14:23, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Note that my post above was a reply to an older version of the post. Whether a small number of 10 year old COI edits, already established as such at the time, is "an important Wiki-issue of the day", seems dubious. Posting this just months after they died is simply callous. And you ignore the greater part of the article, which is about a BLP and which establishes no connection to Wikipedia at all. Fram ( talk) 15:35, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Comment. Just going to note that my preferred method of dealing with Signpost articles is to blank/retract rather than delete. Also, people should consider review the other times articles from The Signpost have come up for MFD. ( edit conflict) – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ^☖ 14:15, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep/adjust if really necessary Shame that this has received about 20x more comments that I've ever seen for any other Signpost piece. Johnbod ( talk) 14:21, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• I'm the author of the piece an the editor-n-chief of The Signpost. I'll remind folks here that Signpost articles are not in article space, but in WikiProject space and the rules that seem to apply are essentially the same as those which apply on talkpages. (more later) Smallbones_{( smalltalk)} 14:36, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  Yes, you wrote the exact same thing above already, 23 minutes ago. WP:BLP and WP:NOTFORUM apply anywhere, including on talk pages. Dragging up what a non-notable; non-public figure did ten years ago (and posting it mere months after his death), and posting a lengthy laundry list about someone else without any connection to Wikipedia in the text, violate these two policies in a serious way. Fram ( talk) 14:56, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  Edit conflcts and real life interupt here. Smallbones_{( smalltalk)} 15:25, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  @ Fram: yes, I'm working on it. You could go a long way in establishing your sincerity here by admitting that what you consider "trivial" is not an issue here. Smallbones_{( smalltalk)} 16:08, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  I have no interest in "establishing" my "sincerity" here to your liking or "admitting" anything to you. I'm surprised it took this long to get a personal attack here though. Fram ( talk) 16:13, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  Ok, then please show me where your opinion of what's "trivial" Applies here according to whatever policy or guideline you like. Also, please note that WP:NOTFORUM doesn't say what you claim it does. Finally, please don't manufacture a "personal attack" out of thin air. Smallbones_{( smalltalk)} 16:27, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  I was not aware that someone had to offer a policy or guideline to express one's opinion that something is trivial (or conversely, that something is "important", as you stated). I have given my statements about which two policies the text violates, and why. However, such comments should stick to the topic at hand, the Signpost article, and not be about other editors. Claiming that someone has to "establish their sincerity" is a personal attack, it is an attack on the nominator and has nothing to do with the signpost article we are discussing. The remainder of your statement that I had to admit anything is just the fallacy of the loaded question, but not even disguised as a question but issued as a demand. Fram ( talk) 16:49, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Delete as written; Fram is right about what the article essentially is in its present state. Emphasis on present state. Let's stay away from discussing how it was before and bear in mind that all the comments are on the article as it is right now. The article right now is mostly a bunch of writings on a figure who is unrelated to Wikipedia. Chess ( talk) (please use {{ reply to|Chess}} on reply) 23:58, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I think it is absolutely worth discussing whether your redactions to the article were within policy or not. I have huge doubts about it; the redacted content looked like standard WP:COIN fare to me. Note that an oversighter had already looked into the matter and rejected the notion that this was a case of WP:OUTING ("We designed our rules to stop coi editing, not facilitate its evasion. I point out a person delivering a speech at a national political convention is a public figure, and has an inherently diminished expectation of privacy").

What's more, the reason why the section about Patton now appears "unrelated to Wikipedia" is precisely that you removed the other section that explained the relation and reported about various different ways in which Wikipedia content had been affected by the COI activities of what is assumed to be Patton's account. So it seems quite disingenuous to demand that editors "stay away from discussing how it was before". As others point out below (in violation of your "directive"), your action has created significant confusion already.

If your goal had been to just remove the likely real-life identity of that particular account (who has made the connection to Trump very clear in their user name, albeit not directly identifying as Patton), you could have redacted the section about Patton instead. Regards, HaeB ( talk) 04:20, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

as I explain below, I disagree with the redactions, and I further disagree with redacting the other section. I thin he article as written has the right balance. I think the redactions without consensus are what is politicizing the issues. DGG ( talk ) 08:21, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I am not an admin or an oversighter. I removed the attempted outing in my capacity as a regular editor and reported to the oversight team as is protocol when dealing with matters such as these. The edits were then suppressed by an oversighter (I do not know which as suppression logs aren't public); as can be seen by examining the logs for the page (there's no revdel logs so it is likey oversight). This was not a unilateral admin action on my part. I removed the section that explained the relation because I didn't want to entirely rewrite the article or add things when I am not the author; simply remove the parts that violated the OUTING policy. If Smallbones wants to add a little "redacted" template or a hatnote that's their prerogative; but I'm not going to do it for them. The reason why I politely asked (you're not bound by my requests) to not discuss the article in its original state was because the article in its original state is suppressed and we're generally supposed to avoid repeating suppressed information given that it's been suppressed for a reason. Additionally, some people seemed to be unaware that there was originally context to one of the passages and commenting here that the article was written as a hitpiece against a specific person. I was hoping this would be taken into account and editors would be aware that Smallbones did not originally write the article in the way it currently is. Chess ( talk) (please use {{ reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:43, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I also don't think the same admin should be revdelling and !voting here. Either involved or uninvolved, pick one please. Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 17:17, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

To clarify, I was not the person who actually suppressed the edits in the page history. I removed the content and reported it to the oversight team as should be done with any attempted outing. It is impossible for me to have revdelled or oversighted the revisions in the page history as I am not an admin or an oversighter. I also do not consider myself WP:INVOLVED for this reason. Chess ( talk) (please use {{ reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:43, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I'm sorry, you're right, I'm not sure how I misread your removal to be a revdel. Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 05:27, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

No problem. It appears a lot of people have the same perception. It's likely because it isn't clear exactly who oversighted the content in question. Chess ( talk) (please use {{ reply to|Chess}} on reply) 07:21, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Delete - There's no question that the article is politically charged, but that's not the main issue. As I've said on the talk page, the article appears to be an attempt to both defame the Trump Organization and out a now redacted user. The Mmartinnyc incident was a decade ago, and the now redacted user also hasn't been active for years. I have to ask, why did Smallbones use such old examples of alleged paid editing (I say alleged because the only declaration was not confirmed off-wiki by Michael Martin before his death, so it may have been a false flag) when, if there truly is a paid current paid editing problem from TTO, there should be more recent examples? Why did Smallbones dig as far back as 2011? To me, this looks more like an excuse to publicly display The Washington Post's claim that Trump has "accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency", remind us that Trump is banned from many social media sites, and put it out there that a public supporter of Trump (Lynne Patton) broke the Hatch Act than trying to raise awareness of paid editing. - ZLEA _T\ ^C 23:39, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• I'm sorry, but I have to question your judgement here, You write "I say alleged because the only declaration was not confirmed off-wiki by Michael Martin before his death, so it may have been a false flag". There were 2 very detailed paid editing declarations by Mmartinnyc stating he was Michael Martin from the Trump Organization. How can you read the article and come up with your summary of the situation? How could we ever discuss paid editing if Mmartinnyc's 2 declarations are not considered evidence of paid editing?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge Martin never confirmed outside of Wikipedia that Mmartinnyc was his account. Anyone can claim to be anybody, and since Martin was working for one of the most controversial organizations in the west, the likelihood that he would be a target of a false flag paid editing declaration to make it look like TTO was corrupting editors is higher than usual. I'm not saying that Martin was not Mmartinnyc or that we shouldn't take paid editing disclosures seriously, but unconfirmed paid editing disclosures are not adequate evidence of an organization corrupting editors. - ZLEA _T\ ^C 18:18, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• You are accusing me of bad faith, of trying "to defame" Trump, rather "than trying to raise awareness of paid editing." I'll just note that I've written or published (in The Signpost) about a dozen stories on paid editing. You remind me of one subject's lawyer who I asked for a comment (since his client was in jail). His reply was basically "Why are you picking on my client? Why don't you write about some other billionaires?" I thought he had a point, so I added 2 more billionaires to the story. Smallbones_{( smalltalk)} 02:31, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I'm not assuming anything, I'm just analyzing the facts and saying what I see. May I ask what Patton's breaking of the Hatch Act had to do with her editing Wikipedia? Those developments were several months after the redacted account stopped editing. - ZLEA _T\ ^C 18:18, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Delete And yet again, the signpost editorial staff show they have zero interest in abiding by ENWP's policies. Blatant attempt to smear people by any means. If this had been put in article space the author would likely be facing significant sanctions. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 10:59, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

political and oversight aspects

Personally, I think the political aspects are trivial . and tho e associated with him are a convenient subject to discus, because so much has been published, much more so than other political figures. I do not regard their attempt to subjvert WP as more than trivial. It's just an interesting case study. i do not think either person did anything at WP perspective more wrongly or even more differently than most politicians. If anything ,I'm a little surprised their campaign didn't try much harder to prejudice our NPOV; I ascribe it perhaps to their more skilled & sophisticated PR, to Trump's personal indifference and possible unawareness of WP, and to the lack of need--there were an abundance of true amateur unpaid advocates promulgating his POV wherever they could, WP certainly included.

To me, the basic rule at OUTING, as with all BLP, is to do no harm. This did no harm. (I leave aside the question of whether one could possibly harm a person willing to work for thet Trump interests by any disclosure we could make about their work on WP here, as compared to all the other things some editors have said about them) . I do not normally take action on outing as a CU, or oversighter, but the leave it to others; I am aware that in cases involving paid editing, my view that those misusing WP may merit somewhat decreased protection compared to those using it in good faith, or involved only peripherally or as subjects, may not be standard, and the view that it is equally bad even if it has no bad effects may be the majority. I do the oversight work that I believe everyone agrees with., just as I do as an admin; I try not to stretch boundaries or enforce my opinions. I oversight the ones I encounter that have clear potentially bad effects, and do not interfere with or revert those oversighters who feel differently. I certainly accept my obligation to prevent harm when i see it, regardless of my views, but i did not see harm here, and the arguments that there is seem unconvincing. Any oversighter who disagrees can do as they think--I normally don't even mention it when someone is more stringent than I think necessary. DGG ( talk ) 08:17, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• I don't understand the logic of this. As someone who has dealt with their comments being oversighted on several occasions and had conversations with the oversight team, speculating about the offwiki identity of editors if they had never disclosed the fact is never acceptable, doesn't matter that the account is 4 years old or not. I would rather that the oversighting had happened the other way around, with the off-wiki identity being censored rather than the account, as it is likely the account did have a COI, but the accusation that the account represented a named individual based on no real evidence was not acceptable. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 17:41, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Your opinion was asked. If you felt as if other oversighters would have had a more stringent approach you should have discussed it with others before okaying the article. Or alternatively deferred it to someone else if you can't enforce established policy and practice. A BRD-like attitude isn't appropriate for potentially oversightable content; we can't "put the cat back in the bag" so to speak especially when something's being pushed out to as many people as the signpost. It's important to deal with COI issues but at the same time we need to be prudent about not outing editors. That's why we have the established policy of dealing with such matters privately if it's essential that those dealing with the COIs know the real life identities of certain editors. Chess ( talk) (please use {{ reply to|Chess}} on reply) 05:19, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

convenience break

• (Comment struck out, see below) Enh, I mean keep it I guess. Guy's dead, so we're not going to hurt his feelings and BLP doesn't apply, don't see how NOTFORUM applies since after all the Signpost is a forum, kind of. If you don't like the page don't read it, I guess is the solution here. Herostratus ( talk) 15:51, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Have you looked at the article? The whole second half, "Not just a party planner", is about another person, who seems to be very much alive: and the article makes no connection between her and Wikipedia at all. How is this not a WP:FORUM and WP:BLP violation? The first part, while one can discuss about WP:BLP here (it does apply to recent deaths as well), is also a WP:FORUM violation; the Signpost is not a forum, or else it has no place on Wikipedia. Fram ( talk) 16:10, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

No I didn't (sorry), and after doing so must change my suggestion to a strong DELETE. Sorry, my diligence failed, thanks for correcting me. The first part was about someone who allegedly wrongly edited us, and I figure the rest of the article was in that vein. I was too hasty, sorry. So, right, I was completely mistaken apparently, sorry, and let me write out this new "vote".

So, it looks like an editor wrote about this Michael Martin person, and then was like "I'm going to completely switch gears here and randomly write about a different person, Lynne Patton, who has nothing to do with Wikipedia, or anything we're about. I don't have a point, I just think she's interesting." I suppose that could be OK, if was all anodyne and nice and ref'd, but then she is the entire second half of an article titled "The Trump Organization's paid editors", well my goodness, that certainly looks like guilt by association. It seems to imply that she had something do do with subverting Wikipedia, when she did not, or if she did there's no source showing or even suggesting that, not even in her article. And it's an accusation, not just an anodyne factoid. Well we can't have that it's a gross BLP violation, and so has to be deleted like it or not.

If it was her article, we could talk about editing to properly balance the public interest with the subjects privacy/being-treated-fairly-and-decently interests. But it's not an article, so there's no public interest is there. It's not worth spending time on fixing it, just delete. Or delete the section about Patton at least. Herostratus ( talk) 18:25, 28 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Herostratus, FYI, the reason why the second half of this piece seems to "has nothing to do with Wikipedia" is because lots of information has been redacted. The author suggested that Patton and a certain user are the same person and many considered it to be WP:OUTING.
  Here's my vote tho: Delete. Blanking it is useless because past revisions that are kept are not the original post. enjoyer -- talk 00:29, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Keep As several editors had already pointed out on the talk page, the accusations that Trump is a victim of political bias here (as "political enemy" according to the nominator's claims) are pretty ridiculous. As for the nominator's other weird deletion argument, alleging that there exists something like a minimum edit count that must be crossed before the Signpost can be allowed to report about an on-wiki incident: That's not how we should decide if there is sufficient reader interest. Any major public figure's (or their Director of Digital Marketing's) attempts to influence article content in their interest while violating Wikipedia guidelines or the Terms of Use can and have been in scope. Such coverage helps us understand the nature of COI editing problems. But in case of Trump it is especially relevant. Not just because of his exceptional stature as a past and possible future holder of one of the world's most powerful political offices, but also because of his particular attacks against user-generated content sites in general, in form of a ( still not rescinded) executive order against Section 230, a law which the WMF and various independent legal experts have described as essential for the existence of Wikipedia - we all would not be here without it. And as Smallbones and I reported in the December 2020 Signpost issue, Trump did not let up on this issue and made other attempts until shortly before leaving office to eliminate Section 230. It's very likely that if he starts playing a more active political role again, he will return to this topic, and it's worthwhile for community members to know about past incidents that may have displayed or shaped Trump's (or his staff's or his family's) attitude towards Wikipedia.

Regards, HaeB ( talk) 05:37, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Your claim, that the "accusations" that this is written against a political enemy are "pretty ridiculous", would be stronger if you didn't then continue with a long explanation of how Trump is the political enemy... Fram ( talk) 07:46, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Yes, I think that "accusations that Trump is a victim of political bias here (as "political enemy" according to the nominator's claims)" are likely true. We're an Enlightenment entity, and most editors are of a liberal bent (and if not, then libertarian or social democrat). By it's nature the Wikipedia editor corps is not likely to contain hordes of right-wing authoritarians. And this indeed is my observation. I doubt that Trump would poll very well here, at all. In fact most of us loathe him, I'm pretty sure. So it's not ridiculous to say that bias could be involved here, no. Herostratus ( talk) 03:18, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Unclear, but not seeing a reason to delete - It's hard to make a call on this. There was apparently part of the "party planner" section which connected Patton to a particular user. That has since been suppressed. Now that section doesn't seem to have any connection to Wikipedia, which makes it strange and out of place. People with advanced permissions should come to a concrete decision as to whether that material should be suppressed and, if affirmative, that section should just be removed as irrelevant. What's left isn't going to win a WikiPulitzer, but I fail to see any reason for deletion. If you don't like it, you're welcome to say so on the talk page or even to appoint a new Signpost editor (I hear the current one is looking to pass this kind of fun to someone else anyway :) ), but why delete? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:14, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Is this even where a !vote should go? Easy with the subsections in structured discussions, folks. :P — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:16, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Strong keep. It's time to listen up to DGG, one of Wikipedia's longest, most mature, and highly respected editors. Knowing him for many years and very personally as I do, DGG never expresses any political leanings, nor does he allow himself to be drawn into party political arguments, even in private. He is in all things Wikipedia the epitome of neutrality and never has a dog in the fight when he comments on hundreds (if not thousands) of AfD.

That said, as a former E-in-C of The Signpost, I vehemently defend its right to be as informative as any quality newspaper (rather than red tops), and not to be treated and hacked about like a Wikipedia article or talk page. For some reason I can't put my finger on, since I rescued the magazine in 2018 and handed the reins over, it has been fraught with attacks and demands for redaction and/or deletion. Smallbones has done an excellent job of keeping the periodical going, but like I did, has fallen into the trap of having to write the bulk of the content himself, without which, beyond the WMF using our paper for their own propaganda, there would be little left to publish.

I'm not a political animal either (and I'm certainly not from the US), and as an adult I've never lived in a country where I'm allowed to vote anyway. So from a purely neutral point of view, I can't find fault with the piece under discussion here. I can only assume that there is a new mindset in Wikipedia that seeks to make an Aunt Sally out of The Signpost just because it is there and happens to be somewhat different from other namespaces. Very sad. In a way, I'm glad I practically retired a year ago from this circus I devoted 1,000s of hours to. I would return to contributing to The Signpost if it were to do what the WMF did to avoid criticism: Take it off the WMF server and host it someplace else. It could then be selective, as all mainstream press is, of what readers' comments it chooses to publish. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 01:15, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Kudpung, I finally decided to disclose my political leanings in a discussion at AE a little earlier today. I'm an extremely libertarian socialist, much influenced by Marxism, very uncomfortable with the current failure of the far left to accept the principle of free information, but otherwise supporting most of its agenda. I continue to hope they will realise radical progress occurs by spreading the truth, not a partial truth. DGG ( talk ) 05:53, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Keep. A perfectly valid jouranlistic piece. Freedom of the press etc. It's also high time to relax the rules on OUTING - editors who are NOTHERE should not be protected like some holy cows. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:38, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep. The article's current state does not violate any policies or guidelines pertaining to content on project pages. It is true that the article is incomplete after the suppression, but that can be addressed by adding {{ redacted}} templates to indicate where the content was suppressed, and an author's note disclosing that part of the content has been suppressed because the Oversight team determined that it was not compliant with Wikipedia's policy on the posting of personal information. —  Newslinger  talk 07:00, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
  • "The article's current state does not violate any policies or guidelines pertaining to content on project pages. "? We have an article "The Trump Organization's paid editors" in a section called "Disinformation report" (so basically stating that these people were paid to spread disinformation) about two people, but for one of them not a single link to Wikipedia editing or a Wikipedia editor is included in the current state. How can this not violate WP:BLP? Perhaps I should have nominated it for G10 attack page instead, that might have been clearer. And thinking about it, that's just what I will do now. Fram ( talk) 08:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

    The least disruptive solution would be to request that the article be renamed to "The Trump Organization's paid editing", not to delete the article, as the article does cover the organization's paid editing. "Disinformation report" is a column that covers conflict of interest and paid editing on Wikipedia; see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-02-28/Disinformation report for the previous article. —  Newslinger  talk 08:32, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  That doesn't address anything, actually. It still spends half the article accusing one BLP of being a paid editor spreading disinformation, without any evidence, without even any suggestion of why they are included in the article. Fram ( talk) 08:35, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  If you object to that section, then start a discussion proposing that it be removed. There is no justification for deleting the remainder of the article, which includes coverage of the organization's paid editing. —  Newslinger  talk 08:43, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  No, then you are left with an "article" discussing how one recently deceased person made a handful of edits ten years ago, which was known at the time to boot, but which is now given prominence as if it is something newsworthy, important, but which actually is only posted because of Trump. In 2016, this would have been a somewhat relevant article (though still rather minor); now, it is just misusing the Signpost to score cheap political points over the back of a minor intermediate. The anti-Trump points scored with an artice like this are not worth the potential grief this may cause to the family of the person involved if they would stumble across this article. Fram ( talk) 08:52, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  I've added Special:Diff/1020653083 to the page history to serve as a valid version to revert to while this discussion is ongoing. The remaining content is reliably sourced and compliant with WP:BLP. If you disagree with the article, you are free to express yourself in the comments, but I am not seeing how deletion is justified here. We do not exclude unfavorable content from any page (if reliably sourced) in any namespace because a person has recently died. —  Newslinger  talk 09:05, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  We also don't put negative, old information about non notable persons on a high-profile page. "If reliably sourced" is rather debatable here, everything we have are primary sources (Wikipedia and that family-written obituary): if this was in article space, it would be pulled immediately because of the sourcing. Fram ( talk) 09:24, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  That is because WP:NOR requires the majority of sources in any article (in article space) to be secondary: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources." The Signpost is not in article space, and is not subject to that requirement. The conflict of interest noticeboard (COIN), which receives more monthly views than The Signpost, contains plenty of negative information about non-notable persons. This page is a COIN report presented in article form. —  Newslinger  talk 09:44, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

  Well, you claimed "any page in any namespace", to which I replied. I doubt anyone would post 10 year old, long resolved, COI editing, to the COI noticeboard though. Why would they? Something which may be correct to post at one time, is no longer acceptable to post at a later date. COIN is used to stop ongoing COI editing or to deal with not-yet cleaned older COI editing; this page though just uses very old and already dealt with stuff to score a point. Fram ( talk) 10:05, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply

• Note: now nominated for G10 speedy deletion. Having thought about this, there is no way that this page should be allowed to stay online any longer. Half of it is labeling a named living person as a paid editor spreading disinformation on enwiki, without a single shred of evidence in the article. And no one involved with the Signpost seems to find this problematic? I hope some sensible admin will do the right thing and delete this (even if someone else would remove the G10 tag for some reason). Fram ( talk) 08:15, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
  • CSD removed, I hope some admin has the guts to do the necessary and delete the page anyway, as it really is a disgrace that this remains visible. Fram ( talk) 15:38, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Well, it’s clearly WP:OUTING to say that “it's very likely that [real-life person X] edited as [User:Y]” if they haven’t disclosed that anywhere. But the counter-argument that this is simply legitimate investigative journalism that would, um, trump the outing policy is worth listening to, I think. @ Smallbones: did you reach out to “person X” (eg by email, Twitter DM, etc) to ask if your conclusion that they edited as User:Y was correct? Usual journalistic practice would be to get a confirmation or denial (or at the least a “no comment” or “did not respond”) prior to publishing an allegation of this sort, and I’d like to better understand the degree to which this piece was intended as traditional journalism. 28bytes ( talk) 09:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Note the speedy deletion template has been placed on the page so that this debate is no longer linked to it. In other words this page has effectively been rendered an orphan except for the MfD index. Is this proper? Considering the main criterion for speedy is existence of "broad consensus to bypass deletion discussion", this seems disrespectful of the existing keep !votes here, at best. To make it plain, I object to the speedy and think it's clear that such broad consensus has already been demonstrated to be absent. - Bri.public ( talk) 14:45, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
  • There also was a "consensus" that no outing had happened, until it was actually removed first and oversighted second, without any indication that this is about to be overturned (oversighters know this has happened, Arbcom knows this has happened, so if the oversighting was wrong, it would probably have been undone by now). A G10 deletion is also not bound by consensus among more-or-less uninvolved editors (as the argument by many seems to be "it's the Signpost" as if that somehow nullifies all policies). Fram ( talk) 15:03, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep. Deleting and speedy deleting legitimate investigative journalism seems inappropriate. This oversight vs COI dynamic reminds me of another recent incident. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 15:07, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep. I'm confused as to exactly what is so bad about this essay. It is not outing, it is not an attack page. Personal vengeance? Is Smallbones a Democratic Party operative? Not to my knowledge. Please. Coretheapple ( talk) 16:01, 30 April 2021 (UTC) Note that my confusion was amplified by examining the page history and observing that the original version of the article was redacted. That being the case, if any problems were cured, this deletion discussion would appear to be moot. Coretheapple ( talk) 15:20, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply
• Meh. The entire article is poor editorial judgement, but more concerning is why the oversight team initially OK'd the publication (if above comments are accurate), and maybe the functionaries need to review their processes as the mass-publicised outing - viewed by hundreds - can't really be undone. But it's a Signpost piece, and courtesy blanking seems better, and possibly even that should be up to the paper. In general, The Signpost should probably have the ability for editorial independence from the feelings of the day, so long as the current revision does not openly violate policy (it does not appear to do so). ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 16:03, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ ProcrastinatingReader: Just to be clear, The Signpost doesn't pre-clear our stories with the oversighters, ArbCom, or anybody else. Never has, never will. To do so would be to submit our newspaper to pre-publication censorship, which is anathema to the idea of a free press in the English speaking world and much of the rest of the world. It would be against WP:NOTCENSORED. Nobody wants that, in particular I'm sure that ArbCom and the oversighters wouldn't want it. If we did that, our readers would assume that every story had been approved by "the authorities", that it reflects their views. The Signpost most definitely does not pretend to reflect the views of "the authorites." The only contact I had with an oversighter in months was about this story. I wanted to know if personal info voluntarily disclosed by a (now dead) paid editor 10 years ago could be suppressed. He'd disclosed his Trump Org email address and phone number, and I just thought it would be easier for everybody to get rid of that part of his 2 voluntary disclosures (actually 3 - one was archived). No such luck, you can't suppress only part of an edit. That's what the oversighter told me. He went on to tell me some of his views on the current state of oversighting - interesting but not really applicable to the story. I had sole responsibility for publishing at that point. Sorry if I'm getting worked up about this :-) but "The Signpost" does not, and never will, seek pre-publication approval from any official body outside The Signpost. Please excuse my rant! Smallbones_{( smalltalk)} 17:28, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
    • I'm not sure if you're aware of this but in addition to being WP:NOTCENSORED we're also WP:NOTNEWS. Fundamentally the signpost is meant to cover Wikipedia and is subordinate to the goals of creating an encyclopedia. Chess ( talk) (please use {{ reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:27, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply
• Delete and firmly remind the Signpost that Wikipedia policies do in fact apply to it. Mr Ernie ( talk) 16:32, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep I guess? I admit I don't think I fully understand the argument in favor of deletion here. Maybe it's because I didn't read the pre-oversighted version. But here's how I parse it: let's assume OS is right and what they suppressed was outing, and let's assume Signpost has no special exemption from PAGs and is just like any other projectspace page. So suppose I write an essay in projectspace and in one part of the essay I out someone. OS might suppress that part; OK. They might block me for outing; OK. But delete the essay after suppression? I don't get that. If the outing has been removed, why would we delete the rest of the page? In its current state, I don't see how the Signpost article violates any PAGs. Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 17:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep I disagree with any arguments to delete this, but I have no objection to constructive editing - meaning, not dismantling it and whipping it the other direction. COI on Wikipedia should be noted, and dealt with if appropriate. COI is not forbidden on Wikipedia, just requires disclosure. Anytime an elected public figure is editing their own articles, or having someone else edit them, it should be documented and dealt with. The subject matter at the core, DT, has been divisive all through, and following, office. It is not Wikipedia's goal or place to begin making accusations of any office holder or politician being the object of political bias and shenanigans. That kind of stuff has been going on for centuries in all countries. Let us just deal with the wording herein, and move on. Fram you were wrong to try to get this speedy deleted when it wasn't reaching a consensus for deletion over here. Let this process play through as it will. Everybody gets their say here, and you don't get to shut it down because of whatever reason you have. — Maile ( talk) 18:55, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep this is ridiculous. The article points out something interesting and relevant to Wikipedia. If this is violating policies, it's the policies that should be changed (our policies on outing and COI have been long problematic as made clear by another recent case). Also, Fram's G10 nomination, two days after creating this, was entirely inappropriate. Elli ( talk | contribs) 20:18, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep. As I said in another part of the discussion, I'do not think that what is being reported is intrinsically controversial or scandalous, just the run of the mill coi editing political operatives and press agents do all the time in WP. The interest it is attracting is merely because the principal is a very prominent and controversial figure, whom apparent almost half of US citizens like very much and somewhat more than half dislikes quite strongly. But this sort of coi editing goes on all the time, and many of us devote ourselves at WP to removing it -- and to exposing it. So it does make sense to publish it when it's exposed in connection with a subject everyone has strong feelings about, because it serves to call attention to the real problem, which is that many, probably most public figures of all political persuasions do it. The article therefore fulfills its function of reporting on things at WP in a helpful manner. I consider the suppression probably unnecessary, and there are mechanisms to challenge oversighters who exceed their very limited brief, but i do not think it worth invoking them. But I also do not understand why anyone would want to delete the rest of the article--to the extent that those thinking that way have clarified what they are trying to accomplish, what they're trying to do is in my opinion unambiguously wrong; the community can say that right here, and it certainly should. DGG ( talk ) 21:57, 30 April 2021 (UTC) reply
• Strong keep - for the reasons stated above by Kudz, Maile66 & DGG - The Signpost is not a WP article - it is our community news source. WP. DOES. NOT. CENSOR. Atsme 💬 📧 00:13, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply

WP is also not a place to publish original thought, scandals, propaganda, or free speech. I realize that essays are more lenient about opinions, but this one overstepped the bounds by defaming a controversial and very political organization using unconfirmed, weak evidence from a decade ago and even attempting to out a user (I don't care if you or anyone else insists that it was not outing, the oversighters seem to think it is). - ZLEA _T\ ^C 03:25, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply

The notforum argument is a bad argument for the signpost. The signpost is obviously a forum. Similar to NOR: the signpost is obviously a place to publish original thought, and opinion, and engage in free speech. You're arguing against the very existence of the Signpost, because if your argument were to be true, then we should delete all Signpost pages. We should also delete this page, because it's a page where we are engaging in free speech, expressing original thought, and sharing opinions. But obviously those things aren't banned on Wikipedia. You're just waving around ALLCAPSSHORTCUTS in a way that doesn't actually make logical sense. Are there any BLP vios in the Signpost article right now? If so, pointing them out would make for a better delete argument. Levivich  ^harass/ _hound 03:34, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply

There are not currently any BLP violations to my knowledge. As I said, I do realize that essays are more lenient about WP:NOT, but is it acceptable to make BLP violations in the first place and use the leniency to defame organizations (no matter how controversial or political) based on unconfirmed evidence? If an outside source reported that TTO had likely paid editors to make supportive edits, then I would have no problem with the article (minus the BLP issues). However, the article as it was written is purely original research, which may be allowed on the Signpost, but should not be left unchecked. - ZLEA _T\ ^C 04:06, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply

I wonder if people actually read WP:NOTCENSORED or just link it because the shortcut sounds good. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 13:38, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Hi, PR - will you please clarify because I don't quite understand your point? Atsme 💬 📧 15:27, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply

I think ProcrastinatingReader is referring to the part that goes:

"Content will be removed if it is judged to violate Wikipedia policies (especially those on biographies of living persons and neutral point of view) or the laws of the United States (where Wikipedia is hosted). However, because most edits are displayed immediately, inappropriate material may be visible to readers, for a time, before being detected and removed." - ZLEA _T\ ^C 15:36, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply

• Keep as this is relevant to Wikipedia, is the Signpost not a talk page, and per Freedom of the press. — csc ^-1 19:53, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep. The community doesn't decide what does and doesn't violate WP:OUTING on a case-by-case basis: oversighters do. If content needs oversighting (looks like it did) then oversighting is the solution. Keeping the history of the article and any non-oversightable content intact is needed. Those who work on The Signpost could courtesy blank it if they wanted. As for the rest, it's not our job to delete Signpost articles, which are not "quasi-official". If you want to give constructive feedback about a Signpost article which you find to be low-quality then leave a comment. — Bilorv ( talk) 22:45, 1 May 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep Because the signpost is in project space, not article space, and we shouldn't censor the main wikipedia "press". Jackattack1597 ( talk) 15:11, 2 May 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep MfD should not be used for Signpost articles without strong reasons. Since I don't know what the article originally contained -- I've just read it for the first time a few minutes ago -- I must judge it by its current contents. It doesn't break any policies I can determine. -- llywrch ( talk) 20:20, 3 May 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep due to a lot of information was redacted since this was nominated. – The Grid ( talk) 23:42, 3 May 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep I don't think that either part of this was particularly good/relevant reporting, but now that oversight has removed the problematic content and outing I see no reason to delete it. An article on a Clueless newbie who joined up, made some obviously problematic edits, were immediately reverted, were completely honest about who they were when asked and avoided making the same kind of edit once informed of our policies isn't really the kind of thing that needs plastering all over Wikipedia project space, especially when the edits in question took place 8 years ago. 192.76.8.91 ( talk) 10:47, 4 May 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep, but only because it's project space, this is definitely trivia. Guy ( help! - typo?) 17:49, 4 May 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep It appears that any concerns raised by the original nominator have been addressed. What remains of the article is entirely appropriate and it is news, not article space. Montanabw ^(talk) 23:21, 5 May 2021 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.