User:Aude/Arbcom

Articles

What is Wikipedia and what it's not?

• What is Wikipedia? - "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs. All articles must follow our no original research policy, and strive for verifiable accuracy: unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references. Wikipedia is not the place to insert personal opinions, experiences, or arguments. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, or a web directory. It is not a newspaper or a collection of source documents; these kinds of content should be contributed to the Wikimedia sister projects." - WP:5P
  • "Wikipedia:NOT|Wikipedia is not]] a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda and advertising. Propaganda, advocacy, or recruitment of any kind, commercial, political, religious, or otherwise. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view. You might wish to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your favorite views."
  • "Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work.

No original research

• The policy on original research expressly forbids novel syntheses of other sources. - "3a) Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Undue weight quotes Jimbo Wales, stating "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." Following this principle, theories which have not been published in reputable sources should not be included in articles on mainstream scientific topics." [1]

Sources

• Appropriate sources - "4a) Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources require that information included in an article have been published in a reliable source which is identified and potentially available to the reader. What constitutes a reliable source varies with the topic of the article, but in the case of a scientific theory, there is a clear expectation that the sources for the theory itself are reputable textbooks or peer-reviewed journals. Scientific theories promulgated outside these media are not properly verifiable as scientific theories and should not be represented as such." [2]
• WP:RS and the policy WP:V#RS - wtc7.net, patriotsquestion911.com (not reliable)
  • Newspapers publish editorials; although newspapers are usually regarded as reliable, editorials are not fact checked, are merely opinion and can only be attributed to the author (only if a noted expert on the topic)
  • With breaking news (such as 9/11), "reliable source" media outlets are bound to get some facts wrong in the chaos, confusion, and uncertainty of the immediate situation. For example, a car bomb explosion at the State Department was widely reported. Likewise, there were erroneous reports of Flight 93 landing in Cleveland, hijackers still alive, Mohamed Atta at Shuckhams, BBC reporting collapse of WTC7 20 minutes early, etc. These anomalies often form the basis for conspiracies. However, these confusions or anomalies were later cleared up, and the earlier erroneous reports should not be used or reported as fact.

BLP

• WP:BLP and WP:EL - some sites are so unreliable, authors of the site engage in egregious WP:LIBEL, harassment, etc. Wikipedia takes BLP very seriously and shouldn't even link to sites like patriotsquestion911.com (which lists people regardless if they want to be listed), yet alone use it as a source in any article.
• WP:COATRACK - biography articles should not be used as coatracks, with large sections (or any sections at all) about fringe conspiracy theories. (e.g. 9/11 conspiracy theories have no place on the Larry Silverstein article)

Fringe theories

• Wikipedia:Fringe theories:
  • "Proponents of fringe theories have in the past used Wikipedia as a forum for promoting their ideas. Existing policies discourage this type of behavior: if the only statements about a fringe theory come from the inventors or promoters of that theory, then various "What Wikipedia is not" rules come into play. Wikipedia is neither a publisher of original thought nor a soapbox for self-promotion and advertising. The notability of a fringe theory must be judged by statements from verifiable and reliable sources, not the proclamations of its adherents."
  • "Wikipedia is not a forum for presenting new ideas, for countering any systemic bias in institutions such as academia, or for otherwise promoting ideas which have failed to merit attention elsewhere. Wikipedia is not a place to right great wrongs. Fringe theories may be excluded from articles about scientific topics when the scientific community has ignored the ideas. However, ideas should not be excluded from the encyclopedia simply because they are widely held to be wrong." (why we have subarticles, but do not devote excess space and discussion to 9/11 conspiracy theories in the main September 11, 2001 attacks article.
  • Obvious pseudoscience - "Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more."
  • Generally considered pseudoscience - "16) Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience."
• Weasel words - repeatedly inserts words including "allegedly", "reportedly", "official"; passive voice - "It has also been argued" - by who???
  • "Official Conspiracy Theory" - In reality, reliable sources do not just come from government, but we have independent journalists/experts (e.g. Lawrence Wright, Peter Bergen, Yosri Fouda...), media outlets around the world, including Al Jazeera, government leaders around the world, the United Nations, structural engineers, and countless others that are not part of "official". It's the very widely accepted account.
• Wikipedia is not the place to "right great wrongs".
  • "we can only report that which is verifiable from reliable secondary sources, giving appropriate weight to the balance of informed opinion"

Summary style and undue weight

• WP:NPOV#Undue weight - "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all. For example, the article on the Earth does not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, a view of a distinct minority."
• WP:SUMMARY - "Sections of long articles should be spun off into their own articles leaving a summary in its place.", "Where an article is long, and has lots of subtopics with their own articles, try to balance parts of the main page. Do not put overdue weight into one part of an article at the cost of other parts."
• Public opinion polls, often sponsored by 911 Truth and other such organizations, poll questions are often loaded to solicit the kind of answers the poll sponsors seek; self-selected polls such as CNN online polls are not reliable; there was a Scripps News poll that could be regarded as reliable, but it was from almost two years ago. Public opinion changes, and regarding "9/11 Truth", support for those theories has diminished substantially. Poll numbers from two years ago should not be taken out of context, nor be presented as current measure of opinion. Also, remember a lot of people believe in aliens, ufos, bigfoot, etc. What is important is what scholarly or reliable sources say. We can discuss conspiracy theories as a phenomena, but not give it undue weight in the main topic article.

Behavior

Assume good faith

• WP:AGF - Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, assume that people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it.

Wowest

• Wowest repeatedly accuses other editors of "POV-based censorship" [3] [4] [5], "Corrected deliberate misdirection and censorship" [6], "Reverted undiscussed deletion/censorship" and "official propaganda" [7] [8]
• Wowest on the Talk:September 11, 2001 attacks page: "Islamo-fascist? George W. Bush uses that term. It's part of the OCT. To be fair to high school students writing papers, then, this article should begin with the explanation: "This article contains only official propaganda from the Bush regime, as reported, unquestioningly, by mainstream corporate media. If you are concerned about conspiracy theories about 9/11, see "9/11 Conspiracy Theories." If you are concerned about the truth about what happened on 9/11 see "9/11 Truth Movement." [9]
• Repeatedly undos the "vandalism" of others - e.g. "Undid revision 166243395 by Weregerbil (talk) Reverting vandalism by weregerbil" [10], [11], and on AFD page [12] and response from "the vandal" [13]

Xiutwel: suspect Wikipedians on 9/11 pages are shills

In November-December 2006, User:Cplot and sockpuppets were posting accusations of Federal "clowns" editing the 9/11 article [14] [15] all over the Village pump pages and elsewhere, see also Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Cplot and Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets/Cplot for the dozens of socks.

Then, this from Xiutwel "How about giving Cplot another try?" - Read more of the comments from Xiutwel regarding Cplot [16]

Also, this message from Xiutwel on Ireneshusband's talk page [17]

Wikipedia editors, and even moderators, may be

    * psychopaths
    * government agents
    * stubborn people in denial

Considering there are about 1 million editors, I am absolutely 
sure some of us are either agents or psychopaths (or both, hihi).

Xiutwel goes on talking about assuming good faith, but says "I won't be able to tell for certain."

Effect on Wikipedians and the editing environment

Accusing Wikipedians of being complicit in the 9/11 attacks (as part of a government conspiracy) to kill thousands of people and cover it up is the most extreme lack of good faith and attacks on us. It is offensive, WP:LIBEL, and if WP:BLP applies to Wikipedians, then these accusations violate that too. It becomes difficult for Wikipedians on these pages to in turn, keep assuming good faith, that "truthers" are here for the same purpose of building an encyclopedia. Also, at times, some of us may have lost our cool, and in the long run, editing under these accusations, the tendentious editing, etc. wears people out. User:Tom harrison is one such editor who was on Wikipedia for several years, helping with 9/11 pages. He has given up. [18]

Again, not all parties to the case have participated in this behavior. Some (a few?) have been very civil (e.g. User:Bulbous) and reasonable to work with, and assume good faith. But, there is a contingent of single purpose users who are strong, relentless POV pushers on 9/11 pages, often with such lack of good faith and tendentious editing which poisons the editing environment.

Civility

• Wowest: Somewhat mild Incivility towards MONGO [19], BoogaLouia (on OBL page) [20], others on 9/11 pages but not so egregious to have warranted sanctions

Harassment

WP:HARASS - only applies to extreme POV, hardcore conspiracy theorists that come on Wikipedia from time to time, and not editors involved on this case. Some hardcore conspiracy theorists engage in harassment of 9/11 victim families [21] [22], witnesses [23] , and heckles and harasses people such as Larry Silverstein. [24] [25] For the most part, it hasn't gone that far against Wikipedians, but some editors are nonetheless concerned about this risk that comes with working on 9/11 Wikipedia pages. That affects the editing environment.

• User:Travb quoted from here - please read the whole statement, including the links, and understand that it was in context or response to User:MONGO (who endured offsite harassment) was desysopped after an arbcom case. If my real name and information was readily available and known, I wouldn't be touching the 9/11 pages, out of real concerns of harassment.

Example of harassment and attacks on Wikipedians:

• Last July, Alex Jones (radio)'s prison planet site attacked Wikipedians, as "disinfo agents and trolls" - Time To Fight Back Against Online Disinfo Agents and Trolls (link to google cache page)

• • Do note that some more extreme POV pushers, as well as prominent 9/11 truth members do come on Wikipedia from time to time. [26] [27] [28]

Being involved on 9/11 pages and talk pages, under the risk of harassment, is tiresome, leads to burnout, and is not a good situation for Wikipedia.

Disputes

• WP:SOCK and WP:MEAT - not concerned that editors involve at the moment engage in sockpuppetry, but 9/11 pages have attracted sockpuppets [29] [30] and meatpuppetry.
• Canvassing on 911blogger and other sites, see WP:CANVASS (which applies to internal canvassing, but principles of Wikipedia:CANVASS#Campaigning and Wikipedia:CANVASS#Votestacking are relevant), also see WP:MEAT - "Do not recruit meatpuppets. It is considered highly inappropriate to advertise Wikipedia articles to your friends, family members, or communities of people who agree with you, so that they come to Wikipedia and support your side of a debate."

Offsite canvassing

Wowest:

• Proposed Wikipedia replacement entry for Kevin Ryan - [31]
• 9/11 entries in Wikipedia - [32]
• Wikipedia help requested - [33]

Note: These were all written in August/September 2007 on 911blogger, when Wowest was a newer user and he may not have understood about Wikipedia rules.

Oneismany:

• PSST! Over Here! - posted on 911blogger [34] - February 2008
• Reforming Wikipedia [35] - November 2007
• Systematic bias against 9/11 Truth Movement on Wikipedia [36] - May 2007

Tendentious editing

• Starting "forest fires" on article talk and people can't keep up. "forest fires" describes what happens when a lot of energy is input into the system at once. [37] Xiutwel is good about using the talk page, though to such an extent (starting numerous new talk page sections) that people can't keep up, makes it confusing, wears people out, and perhaps inflating his opinion.
• User talk page messages - Xiutwel also leaves a lot of inquiring about his edits and why he was reverted. I'm already watching the article talk pages, so the user talk page messages get tiresome.
• Influencing policy pages - Xiutwel has made numerous edits to Wikipedia talk:NPOV. That in itself is okay, but in Xiutwel's case, it ties into his tendentious editing behavior.
• Tendentious editing and disruptive editing
  • Though editing pace is not such that he violates 3RR, Xiutwel repeatedly (very numerous times) reinserts material that other editors remove on policy reasons or that lack consensus. The same goes for Wowest, in regards to edit pace and edit warring.

Wowest: Repeatedly bring the same arguments and edits in a tendentious manner:

• Repeatedly asserts that Osama videos are fake and adds "allegedlyly": [38][39][40][41][42] - "especially the size and shape of the nose", adds images "Image:Fakeosama.jpg <--December 13 "Osama" | Real Osama--> Image:Realosama.jpg" [43][44] (this continued through much of November 2007 and beyond - see User:Aude/Sandbox9#Videos_of_Osama_bin_Laden for details
• Repeatedly adds Christopher Bollyn to the Hoffman Estates, Illinois page: [45][46][47][48][49][50]
• August 27, 2007 - Wowest creates article, entitled Kevin ryan (whistleblower and folk hero), which was later deleted.
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Architects_and_engineers_for_9/11_truth
• "Official Conspiracy Theory" - adds it to articles [51]and even created an article on it, and keeps readding it to the disambiguation page - OCT. [52][53][54][55][56][57][58]

See also

• User:Aude/Sandbox8 - details on Xiutwel's editing (note: this is incomplete, but some more recent editing behavior is covered by others on the arbcom evidence page), Xiutwel usually remains civil and polite, with not much so egregious to warrant blocks or sanctions in the past. He has violated 3RR on occasion, and is very persistent in pushing his viewpoints through tendentious editing and extensively uses to the talk page to the point of disruption.
• User:Aude/Sandbox9 - detailed evidence of Tendentious editing by User:Wowest. Although Wowest usually remains civil with apologies to others from time to time, he frequently accuses others of propaganda, censorship, etc. He does not expressly violate policies such as 3RR, as his editing pace is not that high. However the cumulative effect is that he is here for a purpose other than what Wikipedia is about (not just on 9/11 pages, but also Prem Rawat and a few other pages). 9/11 is a big part of his edits, though, and they are strongly POV, lack due weight and representation in reliable sources other than that these theories exist. Altogether, his behavior on Wikipedia constitutes tendentious editing, which is disruptive and detrimental to the project.