Talk:Awol Allo

Wikipedia policy

Regarding this edit by me which was reverted by Loves Woolf1882, here are the links to Wikipedia guidelines and policies as listed in my edit description (some are common sense, but we can search for policy links if needed):

• WP:';
• switch language to make sense in this context without presenting opinion as fact;
• remove most of the ICG quote because ICG's detailed discussion is not vital to understanding why the reference is used;
• avoid WP:WEASELly "associations like";
• WP:RELTIME: s/has also//; (the notation is standard sed or other regular expression substition notation);
• WP:OVERCITE: rm excessive references;

We can discuss these in more detail if they're not clear. Boud (talk) 16:44, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Another key point is that this article is supposed to be about Awol Allo. Abiy Ahmed's responsibility as government leader is only relevant, in this article, in relation to Awol.

In this version by Loves Woolf1882 at 16:47, 19 December 2020, the Ethiopian government arrest warrant section has three paragraphs:

• para 1: This has 13 sentences (counting by full stops). Only 3 out of the 13 sentences are about Awol. The rest are about Abiy and Ethiopia government actions in general.
• para 2: Nothing about Awol.
• para 3: Nothing about Awol.

So out of three paragraphs, only about one third of one paragraph is about Awol. The rest is interesting information to give context, but it's way too much and too off-topic to go into so much detail here. Most of these three paragraphs should not be in this article. Boud (talk) 17:10, 19 December 2020 (UTC) @Loves Woolf1882: Well-referenced material (or over-referenced material) still has to be on-topic. Boud (talk) 17:13, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

@Boud: Dear sir, thank you for your comment. Yes please discuss like this before revering a well referenced edit I made, next time. Cheers. Here are my answers to your comments and concerns:-

• WP:';

Thank you for this one though I knew about it before and I always try to be careful, but I sometimes make error. Feel free to correct me anytime when you see such error.

• 1. switch language to make sense in this context without presenting opinion as fact;
• 2. (WP:WEASELly "associations like")

All of the references I added to this article are daily news articles, from BBC, Yahoo! News and so on, and I stated as exactly said on these credable articles. I almost used them word by word, without changing the language. And from the things I took from the Al Jazeera opinion article (which you added to "this" Wikipedia page), I presented them as opinion. For example (He said "after silencing dissent and opposition elsewhere in the country, Abiy and his camp are turning to Tigray, the last frontier in the battle over the character of the Ethiopian state".) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awol_Allo#Awol's_view_on_the_Tigray_conflict

A 2nd example of my not presenting opinion as fact, and taking this "word by word" from the reliable reference articles:- Awol has regularly taken to international media outlets like Al Jazeera, CNN and the BBC to criticise what he sees as Mr Abiy's growing authoritarianism, the repression of journalists and political dissidents in Ethiopia.

• 1. remove most of the ICG quote because ICG's detailed discussion is not vital to understanding why the reference is used;
• 2. WP:OVERCITE: rm excessive references;

My main answer for these and many other points you mentioned (and things you added to this page yesterday), I suggest you to first please read Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (WP:BLP) policy. You must state things as exactly they are in the reference when working with a living person's biography (and Awol is one). Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity. We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source.

• Another key point is that this article is supposed to be about Awol Allo. Abiy Ahmed's responsibility as government leader is only relevant, in this article, in relation to Awol. The Ethiopian government arrest warrant section has three paragraphs, out of three paragraphs, only about one third of one paragraph is about Awol.

Again I refer you to WP:BLP. We should not put "only" what the Ethiopian government (or dictatorship as some articles call it) said when they issued an arrest warrant for Awol. We should also present Awol's view, his answer and his view's supposing reliable references, in a constrictive way. For as example, you yesterday wrote only :-Ethiopian authorities issued arrest warrants for Awol and seven other Ethiopian intellectuals for "using a variety of media outlets to destroy the country"

However, I did not delete your above line, I instead added what Awol thinks he was issued arrest warrant for, and reliable articles and human right organisation's publications supporting Awol's view. By adding these few lines (two paragraphs) which Awol was talking about (along with their supporting reliable references), we are only making clear Awol's view and in a conservative way, saving the subject from an attack.

Apart things with WP:BLP issues and so on, I have one by one added your edits to the article. I have made three edits, based on your edits. Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 19:37, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

See WP:COPYVIO and WP:PARAPHRASE. We summarise the most notable points in terms of the meaning of the text, but in our own words, except to the degree where words in the source are the best, simplest words available, or if we're quoting. We don't copy arbitrary stylistic words.

I'm well aware of WP:BLP. Adding an "inline citation to a reliable, published source" does not mean adding extensive statements and paragraphs to support the person's point of view or claim and try to "save him/her from an attack". John Smith may be well-known to claim X and controversial for that claim. We can intrawiki link to other Wikipedia articles on the controversial topic, so that the reader can judge for him/herself if X is likely to be true or false. But we don't follow BLP in the article on John Smith by adding many more sentences and paragraphs to convince the reader that X is true, especially if the only link between John Smith and X is that John Smith is involved in one aspect of X.

@Doug Weller, Bishonen, BushelCandle, Deepfriedokra, LindsayH, and Wugapodes: you've all helped Loves_Woolf1882 get through earlier difficulties in Wikipedia (according to his/her talk page). You might wish to edit this article (Awol Allo) independently of me and help explain things on the talk page, since this is a case that is (currently) reasonably simple in terms of the edit history, and there is mainly only one editor (me) in "editorial conflict" (not really an edit war, it's only 1R) with Loves_Woolf1882. A more difficult case in terms of editing, because of the main page link and world attention to the topic, is Tigray conflict. In some sense it's also an easier case, since a lot more editors are involved, but it's also harder, because the editors there are less likely to have the patience to explain what sort of text is likely to achieve wide consensus. Boud (talk) 21:30, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

@Boud: First of all, I was confusing you with User:KZebegna (the very new account that only & daily edits the Tigray conflict related pages, though he looks like a WP:SOCK or WP:EVADE). That was why I was explaining for you about WP:BLP, as a "new user". Still though, some of the things you accuse me of @User:Boud may kind of contradict each-other (for example, WP:OVERCITE and WP:WEASEL ). I did not see the "very obvious" to you WP:WEASEL I made, since I listed the exact NGOs I was talking about there and then. And there are even more NGOs that say the exact same thing I wrote, like Human rights watch. If you pointed it out very specifically it would have been easier to find for me and "to correct". I spent lot of time to find the WP:WEASEL (because it wasn't mate as one). It is not even important to add the word "NOGs like" for me. I have changed it

• from:- "According to NGOs like Committee to Protect Journalists and Amnesty International"
• to:- "According to Human Rights Watch, Committee to Protect Journalists and Amnesty International"

along Human Rights Watch's reference, if it makes a big difference (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Awol_Allo&diff=995252798&oldid=995218196). But I hope you won't accuse of WP:OVERCITE for it now.

However, I still don't see where I used the wrong language and presented opinion as fact. You said "switch language to make sense in this context without presenting opinion as fact". Please point it out clearly where I did so, as a rule of thumb, don't let everyone guess. Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 01:21, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

By the way, about the WP:OVERCITE, none of the references I added are mirror pages of others. All of them are from different time and/or talk about different peoples' arrest (for example, the Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists references). The only two mirror page on the article are between the Yahoo! News I added, and The Daily Telegraph one you added. I have now removed yours (The Daily Telegraph), since the Yahoo News one is freely available without subscription for anyone to open & verify, (unlike the The Daily Telegraph one). Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 02:10, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

WP:OVERCITE is not a problem of mirror pages. It's a problem of making it difficult for the reader to compare the source to the information extracted from it: a typical reader may verify one of the sources and not notice that the others are wrong. Boud (talk) 08:20, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Separating the issues

I don't know how much patience I'll have, but it seems that we have to separate out these issues one by one. Boud (talk) 08:42, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Copyright violation; Telegraph vs Yahoo

In this edit, I removed your copyright violations in which there was much too much quoting from a Yahoo mirror of The Telegraph, and too much quoting of an ICG article.

You wrote above the Yahoo News one is freely available without subscription for anyone to open & verify, (unlike the The Daily Telegraph one). If you check the current version of the article, you'll see that:

• reference 3 has the original Daily Telegraph URL, which (for me) is accessible without subscription; and an archived version, which is an archive that is fully intended to be available without subscription. It might be the case that your IP address is blocked or filtered against certain types of content. In that case, you should read around and/or ask for help in getting through the blocks.
• You should have a look at Wikipedia:List of web archives on Wikipedia - most of these web archiving services allow user requests to archive pages. This helps tackle the problem of webpages disappearing after a few years, and also helps against internet censorship.

Yahoo is generally discouraged as a source, because it just redistributes news from other sources. Readers have more difficulty judging the quality of a source if it's partially hidden by a redistributor. Boud (talk) 08:42, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

@Boud:. Hi Boud bro, first of all thank you for your opinions and all. Answers to your question and concerns are below.

It might be the case that your IP address is blocked or filtered against certain types of content. In that case, you should read around and/or ask for help in getting through the blocks.

Not true. But I believe www.telegraph.co.uk is not freely accessible from all countries (unlike the Yahoo News one). But if you want to change it The Daily Telegraph one, I don't mind bro. But please update it to the archive version on the reference. For example, when I open it directly now, it needs subscription. I had to search for the archive version.

In this edit, I removed your copyright violations in which there was much too much quoting from a Yahoo mirror of The Telegraph, and too much quoting of an ICG article.

I don't think the quote from the International Crisis Group's group one violates copyright violations. I have seen Wikipedia Administrates quote section bigger than that. (This one is the one I'm talking about ). Anyhow, I added it to make it easier or other editors, readers and administrators to verify what I was writing about.I feel it is your (Boud's) opinion that this is to big to quote, not a the policy's. However bro, I again don't mind if you remove the quotes from the references, as long as there is still a working reference link to the full article. So I accept your edit. Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Administrators have no more rights to decide what is acceptable Wikipedia policy than any other Wikipedia editors.

A separate point: I also noticed (after accidentally allowing some javascript) that some regular newspapers do block their content if you allow useless javascript; I normally only allow first-party javascript (from the website that you appear to be accessing) and a minimal number of extra stuff. In firefox, I strongly recommend the uMatrix plugin, which is briefly mentioned at uBlock Origin, which itself is also very good. An alternative is to directly archive at https://archive.today, since the software there is very good at handling rubbish javascript, and read the page of interest directly on the archive. Boud (talk) 06:50, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

References

talk-reflist Boud (talk) 19:43, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Verifiability

Please have a look at this edit by me, with the edit description, remove wrong references: the fact is about Awol's claim, the fact is not about whether or not Awol is stating the truth; Awol is not in "Amnesty_International_ref_1"; Awol is not in "BBC_ref_7"; Awol is not in "Amnesty_International_ref_2"; Awol is not in "Amnesty_International_ref_3"; Awol is not in "Amnesty_International_ref_4"; Awol is not in "Amnesty_International_ref_5".

The two sentences that need justification are these: Awol became a critic of Abiy in 2020. Awol has regularly taken to international media outlets like Al Jazeera, CNN and the BBC to criticise what he sees as Mr Abiy's growing authoritarianism, the repression of journalists and political dissidents in Ethiopia.

The fact that is being claimed is that Awol became a critic of Abiy and, in particular, criticised Abiy of becoming increasingly authoritarian. Whether Awol's claim is true or false is irrelevant! It is irrelevant to these two sentences whether or not Abiy really became authoritarian. Awol made that claim. It's Awol's problem if it happens to be false, not Wikipedia's problem; it's to Awol's advantage if it happens to be true. Adding sources to try to show that Awol is correct is confusing to the reader. WP:BLP does not say that we should try to show that living people are correct in what they claim.

Verifiability means that the reader should be able to check whether or not the sources establish the fact that Awol became a critic of Abiy and whether or not Awol made that particular criticism (of Abiy). Adding 6 references that say nothing about the claim is distracting to someone who wants to verify the information about Awol and whether or not Awol made a particular claim.

If someone wants to verify the truth or validity of Awol's criticisms, then s/he might want to read the sources, to see if they give more info, or go to the relevant Wikipedia articles on the general topic about which Awol claims something. In this case, Abiy Ahmed would be the relevant topic, or one of the articles on Human rights in Ethiopia. Boud (talk) 09:05, 20 December 2020 (UTC) minor fixes Boud (talk) 19:21, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

@Boud: Hi again Boud bro, now I understand what you meant. It's nice that you point out your point clearly, it makes them easier for people to know what you are referring to. Unfortunately though, I don't agree with your point here. It is not WRONG to add references to what Awol was talking about, in his point. The The Daily Telegraph article ("Ethiopia wants to arrest a UK academic who nominated country's PM for Nobel Peace Prize") should be the first article in the inline citation list (since it has the exact quote), but the other references can follow it (and it is like that now). They are not articles that talk about something else, they are articles that talk about the point Awol was making. Even thought they are not the first priory like the Telegraph one (or the mirror Yahoo one), they are relevant, and most importantly it is not WRONG to add them, for the reader to consider the truth and judge for themselves. To the contrary, addition of these references adds to the verifiability side, since they give a more complete picture of the sentence's intended meaning.

P.S. Forget my earlier point about adding the archived version of The Daily Telegraph article (I see it is already added). Cheers and take care bro. Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 05:46, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Loves Woolf1882: Sorry, but you seem to have misunderstood me. You wrote addition of these references adds to the verifiability side, since they give a more complete picture of the sentence's intended meaning.

Addition of those references adds to the verifiability of what Awol claims is true, but there is no warning to the reader that the references are about establishing the apparent truth of Awol's claims. The six extra references do not verify whether or not he made that claim. Boud (talk) 07:00, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Boud: I have 100 % understood you, but I don't agree is what I meant. To rephrase what I meant, addition of these references adds to the verifiability side, since they give a more complete picture of Awol's sentence's intended meaning.. It is not wrong to give the reader a complete picture, if fact it is better. The references don't talk about cats and dogs (something completely unrelated), they talk about what people are meaning when they talk about the Ethiopian federal government being authoritarian, like Awol did in that sentence. So adding them as a second, third... reference is giving a more complete picture, it is not wrong, it is in fact better. Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 07:28, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I believe the relevant policy is WP:SYNTH... If a reference makes no mention at all of the article topic itself (in this case Awol Allo) it can be regarded as an "original synthesis" that nobody else has ever synthesized before. By this policy, only references that specifically mention "Awol Allo" are appropriate here and the others used to make some other point, are not. KZebegna (talk) 10:58, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

No, you are not correct, sorry User:KZebegna, it is as simple as that. I did not make conclusions...e.t.c. And with all do respect, you are misusing the WP:SYNTH policy, to make a point not listed on the policy. And come to think of it, your comment here is SYNTH itself; since you're using synthesis on WP:SYNTH policy reference and concluding something not said on the WP:SYNTH policy (thought this is just a talk page, and the policy does not apply for talk page discussions). But LOOOOOOL, SYNTH with WP:SYNTH policy reference itself. Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 13:50, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Well it says clearly " that precise analysis must have been published by a reliable source in relation to the topic before it can be published on Wikipedia. " So if a given reference doesn't even mention the article topic, how can it possibly be making the same precise analysis "in relation to the topic" that has already been published elsewhere, to satisfy the policy? KZebegna (talk) 16:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

1. @Loves Woolf1882: WP:CIVIL: stating But LOOOOOOL, sounds to me like words that are mocking KZebegna. You're welcome to state that KZebegna is incorrect and to explain why; but laughing at him/her for being wrong (according to you) is not acceptable. It is not civil and it distracts from serious discussion.
2. To clarify KZebegna's point here: "the article topic" = Awol Allo. Abiy's political decision-making is not the topic.

Here is an explanation that we can think of independent of WP:SYNTH. Consider the following statements:

A: Abiy became increasingly authoritarian during 2020.

B: Awol claimed that A is a true statement.

C: God exists and is good.

D: Awol claimed that C is a true statement.

We have consensus that B is supported by a reference and should stay in this article. This is not in dispute.

Suppose that we had a good solid reference for D and that we agreed that it was a notable statement by Awol, e.g. he was famous for making the statement.

Would it be acceptable in this case to add references to this article, about Awol, supporting the claim C?

Hopefully it should be clear that the answer is "No", because there are a wide range of POVs and claims about C and the reader should be pointed to the article God where s/he can read and/or edit on that topic over there.

Similarly, the article on Awol can reasonably point the reader to an article with a section on statement A (or full article, if justified by the sources and notability), where editors can work on NPOV, sourcing and careful wording on that topic. We are not justified in listing references for A and B together, because these are two different claims of facts. Assuming that we had a good solid reference supporting D, we would not be justified in listing references for C and D together, because these are two different claims of facts.

We can now get back to WP:SYNTH. C is obviously a topic for which 6 references would not be enough to establish it as a well-supported claim. It's a controversial topic for which very careful wording is needed (see the very carefully chosen wording of the lead there) and there are currently 129 references. If Awol were famous for statement D, would we really list 130 references all together? No.

Topic A is also quite likely to be controversial. This is not the place to debate whether or not the sources support A or not (in fact, they don't; they only claim that human rights violations have happened, which is different to statement A). If we list the sources here together with the source for B, or if we list them the way with a brief statement that A is true, then we are doing WP:SYNTH. Boud (talk) 20:32, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Boud: I think to much has been discussed on about this point alone. I have reverted the section back to your previous edit ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Awol_Allo&diff=995481515&oldid=995465947 ). There is currently no Wikipedia page (or subsection) that discusses the topic of growing authoritarianiasm under Abiy in 2020, which we can link to, so these references stay here. Before like a week ago, I suggested the creation of such subsection on the Abiy Ahmed page, but it hasn't happened yet. See the talk on the Abiy Ahmed talk page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abiy_Ahmed#Suggested_NEW_section_addition_%22Political_prisoners%22). Take care! Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 08:15, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

If you cannot reach consensus with editors of the article Abiy Ahmed on including a paragraph on "growing authoritarianism under Abiy during 2020", then that strengthens the WP:SYNTH argument against including the six references on this page. The Awol Allo article is not a backup page for unconsensual edits on Abiy Ahmed. Boud (talk) 11:32, 22 December 2020 (UTC)