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like this part: "In his statement on Monday Comey said the FBI began looking into possible coordination between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives because the bureau had gathered "a credible allegation of wrongdoing or reasonable basis to believe an American may be acting as an agent of a foreign power."" ? Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:27, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Dramatic all right, but not ready for the article yet IMO. "US officials", "suggests", "may have". "One law enforcement officer" says it suggests coordination but "other US officials" say it's premature to draw that conclusion. This is such an explosive allegation that we will need something less vague and more firmly sourced. (At least "FBI sources" or something to identify the agency - not just "US officials"). --MelanieN (talk) 00:31, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
The part I quoted is straight from Comey.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:39, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
I was replying to Casprings, not to you. We edit-conflicted. --MelanieN (talk) 00:40, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
I think you could put it in and tell the source. That said, as/if more gets reported, this is extremely important. Would be the most historically significant thing to happen in an election in my lifetime.Casprings (talk) 00:39, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Right now only CNN seems to have this. Other sources like The Hill are reporting that CNN is reporting it. I think it should be embargoed for a few hours at least. If the FBI really thinks collusion is likely, they're probably leaking like a sieve right now. Geogene (talk) 00:51, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
I did a double-take when I saw this, to be sure, but I agree with MelanieN. Too many qualifiers: "suggests," "may have," "suspected Russian operatives," "possibly coordinate," "the information was not conclusive," etc. GABgab 02:42, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Only one outlet is saying this directly (and others as "according to CNN ...) because that's the outlet that obtained the information and spoke to the sources. Often the most interesting information will be unique to one outlet; when everyone is reporting something it's usually because it's public information anyway or just a recycled press release. That said, there's a huge amount of leaking around this story from people on every side of it, all trying, like media outlets themselves, to push their own agendas. Equally, the media often elevates passing comments into overblown headlines, with the caveats always buried in the article. Per this recent RSN thread, there was a consensus that an encyclopedia should be wary of relying on this kind of reporting – whether it happens to buttress people's personal view of what has supposedly been going on or contradict it. N-HHtalk/edits 10:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
I know that, thanks. Still a good idea to wait for more sources (with their own sources in the IC) to decide to report this themselves. Does everyone realize the potential enormity of this? Geogene (talk) 17:12, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
I don't see why at least some mention somewhere would be inappropriate - CNN is practically a semi-official source, and their publication is notable in and of itself. Including this text would not somehow imbalance the article. Re-writing the whole article neutrally is a far more worthwhile endeavor if we're looking for balance. -Darouet (talk) 18:03, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
Quote from CNN source cited above: "The FBI cannot yet prove that collusion took place, but the information suggesting collusion is now a large focus of the investigation, the officials said." I agree with user:geogene that it's good to hold off until more sourcing, harder confirmation available, IMHO. -- RYPJack (talk) 19:09, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable. -Darouet (talk) 20:51, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
CBS News: FBI probing whether Trump aides helped Russian intel in early 2016
I agree with user:geogene and RYPJack that until hard confirmation of the allegations cited in this article is available, WP:WEASEL-worded statements supporting the allegations should not be given undue weight in this article, any more than Joseph McCarthy's list of "card-carrying Communists" in the US Army and US Department of State belongs in our articles as a source to support statements about the people Senator McCarthy accused of being Russian collaborators.
The encyclopedic value of an article based entirely on allegations made without a public hearing on the issue is no greater than a separate article on the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's removal of sensitive Email from behind a Secure Classified Intelligence Facility fire-walled server to her privately-owned, much less-well secured Email server while she was US Secretary of State. Do we have such a separate article? loupgarous (talk) 20:21, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
Do we? Why not start one. See whether you find references. SPECIFICOtalk 23:41, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
Nunes
Latest comment: 7 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion
@Volunteer Marek:: "Straight-up dishonest misrepresentation of the source?" No, it wasn't, just the wrong word order. Here's what I meant to write: On April 6, 2017, Nunes temporarily recused himself from the Russia investigation after the House Ethics Committee announced that it would investigate the allegations against him of unauthorized disclosure of classified information against him. Representative Mike Conaway will be assuming control of the investigation. Not the most elegant piece of writing, but I'm not a fan of Nunes's shenanigans cloak-and-dagger theatrics, tippytoeing through the WH tulips, in the moonlight … (or was it a dark and storm night?). WaPo: The House Ethics Committee released a statement Thursday saying it had “determined to investigate” allegations that "Nunes may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct."Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:05, 7 April 2017 (UTC) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:10, 7 April 2017 (UTC) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:19, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Yeah I got it - and apologized. Two confusions rolled into one.Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:55, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
@Volunteer Marek: Apology accepted, but it wasn’t really necessary; I jumbled the sentence. I was surprised, is all, to be mistaken for someone who would misrepresent sources to whitewash the actions of a Trump minion. That was a first! Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:17, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Please be gender neutral. I call them "man-nanigans" SPECIFICOtalk 14:31, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
Please stop trolling: here's the etymology of "shenanigans". What's next, demanding that hepatitis be renamed "she-patitis"? Guccisamsclub (talk) 17:53, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
I would settle for she-nunesgans, if you think that would not violate any policies? SPECIFICOtalk 19:29, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
Inconsistent objections
Latest comment: 7 years ago13 comments4 people in discussion
OT1H, the following remains without objection:
"On March 19, 2017, Schiff told Meet the Press that, despite denials from intelligence officials, there was "circumstantial evidence of collusion" between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, as well as "direct evidence of deception." He added that "there is certainly enough for us to conduct an investigation."[117] On March 22, 2017, Schiff stated that he had seen "more than circumstantial evidence" of collusion between Trump associates and the Kremlin.[118]"
while OTOH, Ali Watkins report remains excluded:
"On March 9, 2017, Ali Watkins, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for coverage of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture and on staff at both Huffington Post and BuzzFeed, reported after speaking with "more than half a dozen officials involved with the committee’s investigation” who requested anonymity, that "Even some Democrats on the Intelligence Committee now quietly admit, after several briefings and preliminary inquiries, they don’t expect to find evidence of active, informed collusion between the Trump campaign and known Russian intelligence operatives, though investigators have only just begun reviewing raw intelligence."
To this point, no editor has responded to explain the difference between including Schiff but excluding Watkins. See prior discussion. Humanengr (talk) 05:18, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
Schiff's opinion is notable because he is on the House Intelligence Committee and has seen whatever classified intel has been turned over to the committee (or Nunes has deemed fit to let them see). As for Watkins, that's a cherry-picked - and IMO somewhat misinterpreted - quote from a long article focusing on the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation itself. The quoted paragraph goes on to say: Among the Intelligence Committee’s rank and file, there’s a tangible frustration over what one official called "wildly inflated" expectations surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation. Here are some different - and fairly random - quotes from the same BuzzFeed article:
"I don’t think the conclusions are going to meet people’s expectations," a second official said. That take isn’t universally held — a third official balked at that notion, and said "there’s a lot of room to find something significant."
Lost in the political shuffling is the fact — concluded by 17 US intelligence agencies — that the upper echelons of Russia’s government directed an operation aimed at manipulating and disrupting the US election, and to a notable degree, succeeded. Short of an impeachable offense, officials are concerned the public is missing the forest for the trees.
The House Intelligence Committee has also received assurances from the intelligence community that its investigators will be provided access to Gang of Eight documents, a House aide said. That commitment, the aide said, came from the director of national intelligence's office.
Some fact-checking: The info on Watkins is incorrect. The 2015 Pulitzer prize finalist was the trio of McClatchy Washington Bureau reporters Taylor, Landay, and Watkins, not Watkins alone "for timely coverage of (CIA) ...". Watkins was hired by HuffPo in October 2014; she left HuffPo in October 2015 when she was hired by BuzzFeed (WaPo), so she's not "... on staff by both Huffington Post and BuzzFeed ...". Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 12:58, 31 March 2017 (UTC) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:57, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
Membership on a committee does not make one's opinions notable, and presenting them as the only opinion is biased. Obviously there is sufficient evidence to warrant an investigation but the bar for that is low. A fool calling in a false bomb threat will trigger an investigation. This is the same Adam Schiff who voted to invade Iraq on “based on the intelligence reports of weapons of mass destruction.” He later said, "Our failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq thus far has been deeply troubling, and our intelligence-gathering process needs thorough and unbiased investigation." Fool me once, shame on me. TFD (talk) 17:21, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
@Space4Time3Continuum2x: Would you object if we included a fuller set of quotes from the article? Humanengr (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I would, by reason of WP:BALANCE. Note to self: less rambling, more getting to the point. With that in mind, more of either one or the other: The article is about how the committee is going about using the "… sweeping powers, unseen since the Watergate era, to investigate Russian meddling …", the obstacles they are facing, the differences of opinions among committee members, etc.; interesting stuff but a marginal aspect to the topic at hand (maybe it’ll qualify for its own Wikipedia article someday - see suggestion above). At the time the article was written (3 weeks ago, ancient history in this case), the committee had received approval to view Gang of Eight intelligence but hadn’t actually done so (at least, that’s my interpretation of Watkin’s article), so anything "some Democrats", "one official", "a second official", or "a third official" said at that point in time is little more than soothsaying (expect/don’t expect to find, etc.). I think we should hold off until there are some tangible results. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:59, 1 April 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk • contribs) 14:55, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
@Space4Time3Continuum2x: thx. re "tangible results": Does this article present any 'tangible results'? Yes or no will suffice. Humanengr (talk) 11:20, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
"A Pulitzer Prize finalist" ?? Really? How many of those are there, living and dead? SPECIFICOtalk 19:24, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: What fraction of the cites on this page were written by Pulitzer Prize finalists? Humanengr (talk) 11:52, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Would it surprise you to learn that I, SPECIFICO, am a Pulitzer finalist? SPECIFICOtalk 12:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
It might surprise me if it were true. Humanengr (talk) 12:58, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Anyway, the test is also DUE WEIGHT, and in the case of Rep. Schiff's statement the test may be NOTNEWS. The facts are gradually being established, and it's not clear we're being productive following the daily news, except in statements (at least arguably,per Space4etc, such as Schiff's) when the news fundamentally advances the factual narrative. SPECIFICOtalk 00:27, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: As context, and as you mentioned 'facts': Is it a 'fact' that the Russians interfered in the 2016 United States elections? Humanengr (talk) 04:55, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 years ago38 comments14 people in discussion
It is very atypical for an article to have its second sentence based solely on a long statement. Hence it is now in a quote box. - Shiftchange (talk) 04:43, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
That quote is part of the lead and needs to remain in its location, so I have restored it, but indented it as a quote, per MoS. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:56, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
The quote is far too long for the lede. If you want to include the quote, put it in the body of the article, where it belongs. I've paraphrased the most important element of the quote, that Russia sought to favor Trump over Clinton. I've also moved the specific allegations made by US intelligence to the first paragraph, and moved the Russian denials to the first paragraph. At least now, one can get an idea of what the subject is about from the first paragraph, rather than having to wade through a lengthy, out-of-place quote. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:37, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, you made a series of large deletions which seriously violate WP:PRESERVE, so I have reverted the whole lot. You need to get consensus before making any edit which could be controversial, especially in an article like this one. Remember that this article is under discretionary sanctions and you can get blocked for breathing too hard or blinking once too many times, so to speak /s. We can't go back and forth with controversial edits here. They have to be right. Uncontroversial edits can be made at any time. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:50, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Most of the material I deleted was recently added. It fell into one of three categories:
Long, undue sections about subjects that, at most, might merit an extremely short mention (e.g., the section about Carter Page).
Terribly written material that was confusing to read, and didn't even have a clear point (e.g., the Trump Administration section).
Redundant material. A lot of the things are repeated throughout the article.
I also reorganized the lede to remove the long, out-of-place quotation from US intelligence, and replace it with a short, to-the-point paraphrase. I also moved the specific allegations made by US intelligence to the first paragraph, as well as the Russian denial. With those changes, the first paragraph of the lede actually gave an idea of what the article is about.
Since you raised DS, I'll remind you that consensus goes both ways: if a lot of bloat is added to the article, and someone else pares it down (as I did), you're supposed to seek consensus before reinstating it. Do you actually feel that the long section of Carter Page, for example, is warranted? I don't see any reasoning for your reinstatement of that material.
Basically, this article has become a coatrack for every bit of Russia/Trump material any editor wants to add (unless, of course, the material is critical of the allegations against Russia, or of Russia-Trump ties - even Le Monde and the Süddeutsche Zeitung become suspect sources when they publish such material). The coatrack nature of the article begins right in the first paragraph, with a clunky, long, verbatim quote from a US intelligence report. Why not paraphrase this quote? Unclear. The whole article is written in that way, and if you add back in every long, marginally relevant paragraph that someone feels like adding, it'll just get worse over time. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:16, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
User:BullRangifer is not understanding. He wants something extremely unusual for Wikipedia. It must be justified specifically. We don't put any quotations like that in the lead. It is not proper or needed to be there. It doesn't belong at all, in the slightest and must be removed immediately. This user's edits to this article must now be scrutinized by other editors. - Shiftchange (talk) 07:48, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
I have restored the recent de-bloating edits by Thucydides411 and Shiftchange, which tend to make the article clearer and more informative. Yet more trimming is deserved. — JFGtalk 08:07, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
@Space4Time3Continuum2x:Israel for the Berlin Christmas market truck attack committed by a Tunesian small-time con-artist and drug dealer Can you prove this? Give a source or strike your comment immediately per WP:BLP. Of course, voice of his master speaking. What the fuck does this mean? Guccisamsclub (talk) 00:10, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The POV tags belong at the top, regardless of the edits I made to de-bloat the article. There is a heavy dispute about the neutrality of this article, as everyone here should be able to acknowledge. That means the POV tags are entirely factual and appropriate.
I don't consider removing long, recently added sections about tangentially related subjects (e.g., Carter Page gets two paragraphs - why?) to be "slash-and-burn." If editors weren't so quick to turn each week's report into an entirely new section of the article, this sort of cleanup wouldn't be necessary.
The intelligence section is obviously unbalanced. It specifically leaves out every former intelligence official who has expressed doubt, not on the basis of some analysis of the relevance or authority of that official, but purely on the basis of which "side" the official supports. Binney is a highly experienced and respected intelligence analyst. He was quoted in one of the US' pre-eminent political magazines, by a well-known political commentator. Yet, for pretty transparent reasons, his statements have been removed from the article. They don't fit the narrative this article is supposed to push.
I think this is actually pretty sad for Wikipedia. Writing articles that state your personal political views may feel good, but doing so undermines the credibility of the encyclopedia over the long term. People simply aren't going to take Wikipedia seriously on US politics-related articles if they're written is such a blatantly partisan manner. When we're at a point that editors like myself, who argue for some sort of balance, get called Trump surrogates or Russian shills (full disclosure: I'm neither a Trump supporter nor a Russian, not that there would be anything wrong with Trump supporters or Russians editing this article), you know something is wrong with Wikipedia's culture. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:18, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
I'd like to refer everyone to our article on McCarthyism, the Red Scare and the Church Committee. Why are the same techniques of unproven accusations of treason described in those articles being embraced in the project's articles about any living person? I know I'm entering the discussion late, but I'm honestly surprised we have an article about any living person which reproduces allegations unproven by an intelligence community which has been reprimanded publicly by Congressional investigators for abusing their power for political ends. If WP:BLP means anything, it means we take very special care to avoid repeating errors made by a press which isn't bound by WP:BLP in its reporting. loupgarous (talk) 20:44, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
which reproduces allegations unproven by an intelligence community which has been reprimanded publicly by Congressional investigators for abusing their power for political ends. Weren’t these reprimands made 40 years ago against entirely different people. You appear to be suggesting that living people should be branded with the faults of others decades past. Pardon me for saying so, but perhaps you should reflect on your words in re McCarthyism. Just a polite suggestion. Objective3000 (talk) 21:07, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
When you cite statements from the US intelligence community uncritically, essentially giving them a wikipedia article in which their assertions are treated as WP:RS while deleting dissenting opinions, it's a POV issue. When our articles paraphrase the original text by US intelligence community officials using terms not used in the original text which have more extreme emotional content (using "attack" instead of the word the official used, "dismiss", to describe the Trump transition team's reaction to statements by one or more US intelligence community officials), that's a POV issue, too.
And, seen objectively, it's difficult to describe the US intelligence community's publicizing the product of ongoing counter-intelligence investigations about one of the two candidates in the 2016 Presidential campaign, and continuing to do so as anything but McCarthyist. The boogeyman brandished by the news reports citing these reports is even essentially the same - Russia. The only thing I have to say to the press for cooperating in an act of unprofessional political sabotage by senior members of the US intelligence community is what Joseph McCarthy was told by Joseph N. Welch during the Army–McCarthy hearings - "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" loupgarous (talk) 22:06, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
First, I looked at the link at the beginning of your edit and saw that it was too absurd a source to read. After that, I skipped most of your text and went to the end. Your famous quote at the end is an absolutely wonderful quote. It’s just fantastic in the way it cut down McCarthy and his puppeteer, Roy Cohn. That’s why it should be very rarely used, as should Godwin-like refs. My point is that you are using the worst events in history as comparisons in, what appears to be, a less than judicious manner. Not everything is black and white. I don't see anything here that rises to the level of McCarthyism. Your edits appear to lack any nuance. That makes them less than convincing as editors are likely to ignore such. Try to make a case without drudging up long-past monstrosities and applying them to current events. That could be considered a BLP vio, as well as resulting in other editors rolling their eyes. Just my opinion. Objective3000 (talk) 00:13, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Please show where I accused any wikipedia editor of McCarthyism. I did nothing of the sort. Read what I wrote carefully:
"And, seen objectively, it's difficult to describe the US intelligence community's publicizing the product of ongoing counter-intelligence investigations about one of the two candidates in the 2016 Presidential campaign, and continuing to do so as anything but McCarthyist."
and
"::I'd like to refer everyone to our article on McCarthyism, the Red Scare and the Church Committee. Why are the same techniques of unproven accusations of treason described in those articles being embraced in the project's articles about any living person? "
Whether you wish to admit it or not, this article does treat a McCarthyist narrative as though it were allowable under WP:BLP. Whether the subject of this article is Donald Trump or (for example) Ward Churchill, the person is entitled to the same protections in our articles outlined in WP:BLP. That the subject of this article might be featured in a churnalistic press cycle doesn't relieve our responsibility to be responsible in discussing living persons.
Accusing me of committing an WP:BLP violation by advocating we actually obey the guidance in WP:BLP's rare irony, not to mention WP:WIKILAWYERING. Accusing me of calling anyone in wikipedia "McCarthyist" simply because they carelessly cite McCarthyist narratives from some members of the US intelligence community in our article is a WP:CIVIL violation, because it's a false accusation. Drop the stick, please. loupgarous (talk) 00:38, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
I have no stick to drop. But, I'm done trying to help you. Luck. Objective3000 (talk) 00:47, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Re:loupgarous there are some (occasionally humorous) articles that discuss the "McCarthyism" issue in the media, and I think it'd be worthwhile to bring some into this article, since this has been one of the reactions to this whole affair. -Darouet (talk) 13:19, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Bloat, spin-off sub-articles, and building the encyclopedia
Just to be clear, I'm not against paraphrasing. The quote happens to be very comprehensive, while succinctly mentioning key points in the article. That's good. It is unusual to include such a large quote in the lead, so if anyone wants to paraphrase it, while retaining all the key points, and using the same ref as the citation, that would be great.
There seems to be too much concern about article "bloat". This is a meta article, and such articles are SUPPOSED to bloat until they literally burst, and a normal procedure is then followed which does not violate PRESERVE. As each section gets bigger, we keep an eye on it. If its size creates a weight problem, we spin off the content, leaving a summary. Using the lead of the new spin-off sub-article as the summary in the main meta article is often a good practice. Each summary gets its own paragraph and "main" link to the new spin-off sub-article.
This is a huge and growing topic, and there will be many spin-off articles, so don't hesitate to do what we're supposed to do, which is to BUILD (add), not DESTROY (delete), the encyclopedia. We want to document what RS say, and we can't allow deletionism to keep this large-subject article too small, at the cost of ignoring many good sources and much good content.
Such attempts to squeeze a growing foot into a small shoe creates many problems, and the determination of what gets left out becomes an exercise in POV deletionism and gross violations of NPOV, because then its competing opinions about weight which rule, and that's not right. Edit wars increase and the atmosphere gets poisonous. If good content is found in a RS, it's potentially eligible for inclusion, and editors on both sides should allow such inclusion. When dealing with large topics, it's better to err on the side of too much content, rather than too little. We are supposed to document the sum TOTAL of ALL knowledge, as found in RS. Let's do that. Strive to build. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:28, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree with BR and I note that if we stick to NPOV presentation of what mainstream reports say, the narrative will fall into a consistent and orderly form. The problems arise when fringe or non-noteworthy or self-serving commentary is cherrypicked from among the thousands of such sources readily available online. E.G. all the former pundits and one-time somebodies whose snippets were briefly enshrined here. SPECIFICOtalk 15:59, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
There are tools to express your grievances, including WP:DRN and WP:RFC. At this point, some of your grievances have been settled by RFC, regardless of whether you agree with the decision of the closing admin. Some of your other grievances have not been, so if you feel strongly about them I would encourage you to use the processes. But repeatedly making edits that you have to know will be controversial (and probably reverted) is probably not the best tact.--137.54.15.236 (talk) 15:00, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
Quote in the lead
Does the quote belong in the lead? Should it be perhaps moved into the body of the article?
“
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Hillary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-electTrump. We have high confidence in these judgments.[1]
I've not seen such treatment (block quote) is the leads of other articles. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:30, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree - it should be paraphrased. The concern I guess is that someone might try to remove this info entirely from the lede.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:41, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
(Repeating what I wrote above...) Just to be clear, I'm not against paraphrasing. The quote happens to be very comprehensive, while succinctly mentioning key points in the article. That's good. It is unusual to include such a large quote in the lead, so if anyone wants to paraphrase it, while retaining all the key points, and using the same ref as the citation, that would be great. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:30, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
What are the key points? Paraphrasing implies not repeating every point made in the quote. Here's what I wrote earlier:
A US intelligence community assessment expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and aimed to harm the latter's electoral chances.
That hits what I consider the key points. If there are nuances that need to be explained further, they can go in the body of the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:51, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Here's a very rough paraphrase:
The intelligence community posited several aspects to the interference: Putin ordered it with the goal of undermining faith in the democratic process and hurting Clinton, thus hampering her ability to become president. They also assessed that Putin clearly favored Trump. The intelligence community had "high confidence in these judgments."[1]
That's the gist of the key points in the quote. Feel free to improve it, especially where I might have gotten it wrong. I think the quote is so good that I'm going to include it in the full ref, rather than in the body. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:48, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
That's still far too long. It's not so much a question of having quotation marks or not, but rather the length at which the quotation is presented. There's no need for more than one sentence on it. This is the lede, where we're supposed to be succinctly summarizing the subject. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I disagree. Each point is rather important and is developed (or should be) in the article, therefore it must be mentioned in the lead. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Here is the original quote:
"We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments."
^Cite error: The named reference Declassified Report was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
I would probably go with the slight expansion on TCD's version:
"A US intelligence community assessment expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. It further stated that an "influence campaign" ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to harm Clinton's electoral chances and thus sway the election."
This adds the role that Putin played, as it seems important. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
How about this?
A US intelligence community assessment expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chances.
It hits all the same points (I think "harm Clinton's electoral chances" implies "sway the election"), and is a bit shorter. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:08, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's better than my version. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:10, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Looking better. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:14, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
The intelligence folks are masters of concision. This is a case where, for this long article, the quote is better than anything WP editors could use in its place. e.g. the most recent omits "undermined the US democracy". Let's just use the quote. It's the touchstone for the article that follows. Kinda like the 10 commandments, only better. SPECIFICOtalk 00:35, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I have nothing against the quote, but let's move it into the body. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the lead. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:15, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
"Ten commandments." That is rich. -Darouet (talk) 02:12, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
K.e.coffman, go ahead and replace the quote with the summary. I have already included the whole quote in a ref (not body) further down, so readers can see it if they want. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:32, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Done; thanks! Here's the edit: diff. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:34, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Addition: I removed the statement "... and undermine American democracy" (diff) as it was not part of the agreed-upon version. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:45, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
@K.e.coffman: Appreciate your efforts. Good re 'alleged' in 1st sentence and 'high confidence' in 3rd. 2nd sentence has 'concluded' though as I read the report the 'leaks' assessment was with the same 'high confidence' as the other points. ("We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks.") Can you adjust? Humanengr (talk) 05:10, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
17 Agencies
Latest comment: 7 years ago37 comments8 people in discussion
The lede currently states,
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), representing 17 intelligence agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) jointly stated that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's personal account, and leaked its documents to WikiLeaks.
The "17 intelligence agencies" claim is misleading, since only a few of those 17 agencies actually had anything to do with investigating the email leaks. As many people have pointed out, Coast Guard Intelligence has little to say about DNC email leaks. As far as I can tell, "17 agencies" is just a polemical line used in the debate over alleged Russian hacking. Why is it in the article? I'd suggest simply removing "representing 17 intelligence agencies" from the text. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:58, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
That's OR. We follow what the RS say. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:59, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
"since only a few of those 17 agencies actually had anything to do with investigating the email leaks....just a polemical line used..." How is that not OR? -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I suspect the problem is that the statement is about the 17 agencies who "jointly stated that..." You are talking about "investigating the email leaks." It doesn't address that. We'd need special insight into how they agreed to make such a joint statement. All we know is that they agreed "that Russia hacked..." That's why your concern is OR. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:12, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
How would leaving out the misleading "17 intelligence agencies" line introduce any OR into the article? -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:15, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
That it's "misleading" is your OR. RS state it, so we report it. Without RS, we can't speculate on how they came to that decision. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:20, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
The fact that not all 17 agencies were involved in the investigation or report is not my OR. For example, Time stated that
"Not all 17 intelligence agencies participated in preparing the assessment."[1]
I don't see why we should include a misleading clause about 17 agencies. It has its origins in polemics (it comes originally from the Clinton campaign), and it doesn't add anything to the article. In fact, its only contribution would be to misinform readers. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:30, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
What part of "jointly stated that Russia hacked ..." is misleading? -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:36, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
The "..." part, funnily enough. Here's the change I propose:
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), representing 17 intelligence agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) jointly stated that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's personal account, and leaked its documents to WikiLeaks.
We know (from reliable sources) that not all 17 agencies were involved in the report, and also that the "17 intelligence agencies" line comes from a line Clinton used in the third presidential debate. It's just a misleading line, and I don't see why we're repeating it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:44, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
None of it is misleading. How's you can tell is that instead of demonstrating how it's misleading, the POV editor just asks you loaded questions. Not likely to advance rational discussion. Thuc's suggestion is twisting words just like in the cold war era. SPECIFICOtalk 00:42, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, what does the country’s top intelligence official’s testimony to Congress have to do with the Clinton campaign, as you just suggested? Objective3000 (talk) 00:45, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
@Objective3000: I don't understand your question. I'm asking why we include the phrase "representing 17 intelligence agencies" when discussing the joint DNI/DHS statement. The "17 intelligence agencies" line was originally a polemic (it comes from Clinton in the 3rd presidential debate), and it's not even in the sources we cite about the joint DHS/DNI statement. For example, here's what the source we use right now (the Guardian) says about the statement:
“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” said the office of the director of national intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a joint statement.
When describing the statement, the Guardian doesn't say "representing 17 intelligence agencies." Why are we adding this additional statement in? -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:59, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Maybe the SW deutsche daily again?? It's pointless to respond to these taunts. If there is RS, we would have been shown the RS verification, and we could evaluate the source, due weight, and other policy-related concerns. Without a substantive basis for that kind of assertion, it's best not to be drawn into more Q+A because it's not focused on article improvement. SPECIFICOtalk 00:50, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Comment -- the proposed change is reasonable:
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), representing 17 intelligence agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) jointly stated ...
"17 agencies" is excessive intricate detail outside of the scope of an encyclopedia article that is supposed to follow summary style. It does not help readers' understanding, and in fact may hinder it. As in "which 17 agencies"? "why do I care about the 17 agencies"? Etc. The two main ones are sufficient. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:06, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
This is unconvincing, because the omission of the 17 is being proposed for the purpose of deprecating the finding and insinuating some unstated doubt among the 17 agencies that determined the facts. SPECIFICOtalk 01:16, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I did a quick search and the topic of "17 agencies" appears only in the lead. If it's not discussed in the article, it does not belong in the lead in the first place, as the lead is supposed to be a summary of the article, not a stand-alone mini article. And the omission is being proposed for concision and reduction of irrelevant intricate detail. Imputing other motives appears far fetched. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:21, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
So add it to the article. We just say what the RS say. Objective3000 (talk) 01:24, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
We are editors, not automatons to parrot exactly what the sources say. In this case, the omission of what I contend is intricate detail would help readers' understanding. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:26, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
As I pointed out above, the source we cite right now for this sentence ([2]) does not mention 17 intelligence agencies. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:31, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
If that concerns you, check a dozen other mainstream -- not bavarian daily -- RS and find the strongest 3 and bring them to the table mabel. SPECIFICOtalk 01:34, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Ke, You're new around here and I'm sure you're a good diligent editor, but if you review the talk page archives and edit and Arbcom Enforcement records relating to this article, you will see that there's no imputing, impugning, or any other im-words here. It's acknowledged and explicit POV being pushed on the theory that the mainstream sources do not represent the weight of the mainstream view. And yes, we do "parrot" what RS say on a detail that at least one editor insists is of paramount significance. SPECIFICOtalk 01:32, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
As I pointed out, the detail on "17 agencies" is irrelevant and potentially confusing. I don't believe it belongs because we are supposed to follow summary style. And if an editor believes that it's of "paramount" importance, why is this importance not conveyed in the body of the article?
Also see ...being proposed for the purpose of (...) insinuating some unstated doubt...., which was posted below my comment. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:40, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
There are numerous RS which mention 17 agencies, but there are actually only 16 under the leadership of the ODNI. I'm still not sure why the RS say 17 agencies, unless they are mistakenly including the ODNI as one, or are including some other intelligence agency. The Oct. 7, 2016 "joint statement" includes the DHS ("Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security").
Whatever the case may be, we could just as well include a RS which does mention the "17 agencies" part. Here's a good one: NPR -- BullRangifer (talk) 01:49, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
As Time noted (source), only a few of the agencies were actually involved in investigating the email leaks. Rather than trying to find additional sources that we could use to justify including the misleading "17 intelligence agencies" wording, I think we should just get rid of the phrase. It doesn't add anything to the article, and it gives the false impression that 17 agencies were somehow involved in investigating the email leaks. I'm not proposing to remove the DNI/DHS statement, but simply to remove the "17 intelligence agencies" phrase. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:58, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, you have just inadvertently resolved the confusion. We are referring to the Oct. 7, 2016 "joint statement", while you are confusing it with the January assessment given to Obama and Trump. The Time link is about the latter. These are two very different things. You still confuse your OR concept of "involved in investigating" (we don't know anything about that) with what Time describes as "Not all 17 intelligence agencies participated in preparing the assessment. An unclassified version of the report is expected to be released on Friday morning, two officials said." The "assessment" they are referring to is the one given to Obama and Trump in January. It also included a short summary of the 35-page dossier. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:27, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
The two - the DNI/DHS statement and the subsequent report - are related. From Time's reporting, we know that only a few agencies were actually involved in the investigation. The source we actually use to describe the statement (the Guardian), doesn't make any mention of 17 agencies. At the time the Guardian article was written, as far as I can tell, no newspapers were reporting about "17 intelligence agencies." That phrase comes from the 3rd presidential debate, as a polemic that Clinton used to try to underline the DNI/DHS statement. I really don't see why we should include a phrase that will lead many readers to a dubious (read, almost certainly false) impression about the investigation into the email leaks. What's the point? -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Case closed, mission accomplished. Finito. Pass the mustard. What shall we work on next? SPECIFICOtalk 01:52, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer and Objective3000: I agree with Thucydides411 and K.e.coffman that, since some sources mention "17 agencies" but many others don't, and since this isn't discussed in the article body, it is reasonable to remove this statement from the lead. The editorial decision to include it has no halo around it. I am also amazed that we still open the lead of this article with a long quote from the intelligence agencies - we might as well ask them to write the article themselves. -Darouet (talk) 02:00, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree that "17 intelligence agencies" is flatly contradicted in Time. Last time I checked, they are a mainstream news source which is WP:RS. The source of the confusion appears to be that members of all 17 members of the US intel community made these allegations, and may have done so without the consent of their employers ("going rogue" is a frequently-encountered meme in the press recently to describe those members of the intelligence community who illegally "unmasked" members of the Trump transition team whose electronic communications were intercepted by the NSA and other agencies).
I fail to see the benefit of incorporating widely disputed allegations that all 17 members of the US intel community concurred in making these charges in one of our articles. Mentioning the allegations which aren't disputed between different WP:RS sources is more prudent and acting in the spirit of WP:BLP. loupgarous (talk) 17:49, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Being a bit pedantic, but that was Reuters published in Time. Frankly, though, that adds even more weight to it as I see Reuters as better than Time. EvergreenFir(talk) 18:00, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
B L what? WP reflects the weight of RS description. Since many RS report the conclusion of the US intelligence assessment as a whole, perhaps you can propose language that accurately conveys that fact without using the number 17, if that's what bothers you. The Time bit says that not all agencies participated in the preparation -- that's always the case. Not all agencies have assets or expertise related to each finding of the National Security Assessment. However there's no RS that verifies any dissent among the agencies that jointly determined that the Russians interfered, etc. If what bothers you is actually the fact that this was the US intelligence assessment -- as a whole -- then I think that without a source to verify dissent among the agencies, you are out of luck. SPECIFICOtalk 18:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. It's WP:OR to say in one of our articles that since no US intelligence agency has published dissent from the agencies which have announced their opinion that Russia interfered in the 2016 United States elections, that all US intelligence agencies unanimously agree in that assessment. We're not allowed to make logical leaps like that in wikipedia articles. loupgarous (talk) 02:25, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Straw man. Counterfactual. You rebut what nobody said. So what? SPECIFICOtalk 02:55, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
There are guidelines which indicate how we cite sources, and how we judge the reliability of sources. If you can find an actual WP-reliable source which explicitly says "every agency in the US intelligence community believes Russia interfered in the 2016 United States elections" with the support of verifiable facts that don't use WP:WEASEL language, go for it. There is no such source which isn't indulging in editorial comment, and we always identify editorial comment as such, not as factual reporting.
We ought to report what the sources we cite actually say, which isn't what you seem to think it is. It's appropriate for article to report what appears in the mainstream press and that only, accurately describing any caveats and evasions in those statements, and also intelligently considering the WP:BIASED nature of those statements based on prior statements made in each source. That is how we decide what the weight of those allegations may be. loupgarous (talk) 03:23, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Straw man. Counterfactual. SPECIFICOtalk 03:50, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Crowdstrike report on Ukraine in lead - misleading language and undue weight
Latest comment: 7 years ago18 comments7 people in discussion
I've removed an addition of two new sentences in the lead section about CrowdStrike revising a prior report. I think it's undue weight and misleading, and I'll explain why.
More importantly, the relevance is attenuated and the wording is misleading. The text added refers to "the data had been misrepresented" - implying that the report was about the U.S. election interference.
But the sources actually say that "the data" and "the report" were about a completely different CrowdStrike report, about the war between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists and a specifically to hacking into a "Ukrainian artillery app, contributing to heavy losses of howitzers." CrowdStrike revised its estimate downward, from saying "Ukraine's artillery lost 80 percent of the Soviet-era D-30 howitzers" to new figures of "15 to 20 percent losses in combat operations." Again, has zero to do with U.S. election interference.
Thus, the new language misleadingly implies that CrowdStrike changed its conclusions relating to the source of the cyberattacks against the U.S. That is simply not true.
Given the attenuated/very indirect connection, including this text in the lead section is undue. The addition of the text gives 2 of the 20 sentences in the lead (a full 10%) to CrowdStrike's amendment. The lead should be reserved for the most significant developments. This is not one of them. Coverage of the revision has been minimal.
It's also undue weight because CrowdStrike was one of many cybersecurity firms to come to the same conclusion. Fidelis, Mandiant, SecureWorks and ThreatConnect said the same thing. To call out CrowdStrike in the lead section smacks of cherry-picking.
I think this is a misrepresentation of the source by Allen Nozick (talk·contribs). They inserted the following: "CrowdStrike has since revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking during last year's American presidential election campaign". However, the quoted source tells something opposite: CrowdStrike representative(s) insisted on their conclusion. My very best wishes (talk) 05:22, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Neutrality's observations. Even if it had been true, which it wasn't, there are many other experts who independently concluded the Russians were behind the hacks. Page 35 of the dossier even states very clearly that Trump's people paid the hackers who did the hacking of the DNC. (I am not suggesting we include that, at least not yet, but the FBI is now using that dossier as their "roadmap" for further investigations. That's how much they trust it as an accurate source.) -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:26, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Have you read both sources? . voa writes that "U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking during last year's American presidential election campaign. The shift followed a VOA report that the company misrepresented data published by an influential British think tank.". Far from being "misleading" the language I used could hardly have been more faithful to the source. As for the "cherry picking" and the "undue weight", I can't accept the argument. Crowdstrike is leading among the cybersecurity companies supporting the Russian theory. Experts who do not reach the same conclusion, like Jeffrey Carr for instance, are not even cited. For the sake of neutrality I think that when one of the main accusers is called into question by no less than Voice of America and IISS, this should be mentioned. I am not the only one to hold this view.--Allen Nozick (talk) 02:42, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
BullRangifer, do you have solid evidence that "Trump's people paid the hackers who did the hacking of the DNC"? This is a very serious accusation that shoud not be made lightly. Of course, if you had that evidence, it would be our moral duty to publish it. Regards.--Allen Nozick (talk) 02:58, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Allen Nozick, did you read my whole comment? I provided the link to the source. Please read that source, just so you know what's happening in the world, and what the FBI's "roadmap" says. Things will make a lot more sense. We aren't at the point where we'll include that yet, but maybe we will soon. All we need is secondary RS to mention it. I suspect they already exist. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Allen - please don't restore content that has been challenged at talk on policy-based grounds. When three editors take an opposite view from you, when those views are expressed in specific detail on the talk page, and no other editor supports your position, the correct course is usually to continue discussion and re-evaluate your own view, not to unilaterally revert to restore challenged content. This is doubly true on this particular page.
As for your comment here, it's not responsive to my comment above. The sources reflect that the Crowdstrike report in question was on Russian malware used to attack Ukrainian assets and basically had nothing to do with the U.S. election interference; this has almost no direct relevance, let along "lead-worthy" relevance, to the U.S. election interference. It's a revision to one report on a completely separate topic by one cybersecurity firm (among many). Given this, it's no surprise that this got very little attention in the reliable sources. No coverage from AP, AFP, Reuters, UPI, or other major wire services. No reports or even mentions in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. No attention from serious scholars or even respected commentators. This is basically an enormous red herring. Neutralitytalk 03:46, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
"Revised" what? The source by Allen tells about revising an entirely different claim about Ukrainian artillery: "The company removed language that said Ukraine's artillery lost 80 percent of the Soviet-era D-30 howitzers, which used aiming software that purportedly was hacked. Instead, the revised report cites figures of 15 to 20 percent losses in combat operations, attributing the figures to IISS." My very best wishes (talk) 03:49, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Let's suppose you are right and there's no connection whatsoever. Then, how do you explain that, in their first sentence, voanews write "U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking during last year's American presidential election campaign."? Are you suggesting they are trying to mislead the public, me included? If not, could you please clarify?--Allen Nozick (talk) 23:25, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Like they say in Gorky, "when it comes to UNDUE, just un-DON'T." Crowdstrike's importance to Russian Interference is on the order of e-9. SPECIFICOtalk 23:50, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Allen Nozick, you nailed it. Among Trump's early moves were actions to bring the VOA under his personal control, something which we have always avoided. Dictatorships do that. Just this one search will show that concerns about this have been voiced by several, including the Los Angeles Times. Maddow reported what happened: "...the CEOs office this week at the Voice of America was taken over by two 20-something political operatives from the Trump campaign." They answer to Trump, so the independence of VOA is gone. It is presumably now his voice when necessary, and if there is any subject where he will use the VOA to spin the narrative, it's this one.
We used to trust it to be neutral, just as we used to trust Wikileaks to be neutral. Now the VOA speaks for Trump personally, and Wikileaks proved during the campaign that it speaks for Putin (and the 35-page dossier indicates Wikileaks was working for Trump's campaign as well). In both instances, VOA and Wikileaks can be used for the personal purposes of Trump and Putin respectively. BTW, several RS have commented on the dossier's statements about the Putin-Trump-Wikileaks coordination to rig the election. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:13, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of any issues with VOA, but the Ukrainian howitzers, and CrowdStrike's claims regarding their casualty figures, have nothing to do with the DNC hacks or this article. If VOA claims otherwise then it's time to look for other sources. Geogene (talk) 04:53, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, they are two separate issues. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:05, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
BullRangifer, we should be very careful not to propagate conspiracy theories. I am not a Trump fan but I cannot accept the assertion that "Now the VOA speaks for Trump personally" without incontrovertible evidence. I fail to see the logic behind it. It would certainly have been much more effective to replace all high ranking officers in the Intel community by his men, which he hasn't done so far. I am also growing skeptical about Trump's alleged collusion with Putin. It doesn't seem to fit well with the recent airstrikes on Syria.--Allen Nozick (talk) 02:04, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Any WP:OR conclusions about the new editorial policy at The Voice of America based on comments by Rachel Maddow don't belong here. Any connection between changes in administration at VOA alleged by Ms. Maddow ought to be based strictly on what she herself has said, and the guidelines in WP:BIASED should be applied, given Ms. Maddow's history of antagonism to the Republican party and support for the Democratic party (the party damaged by those leaked documents, regardless of their provenance). loupgarous (talk) 03:01, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
BullRangifer, I had hoped for some sort of response from you. loupgarous, since you seem to agree with me that The Voice of America is still a reliable source, do you also agree with my reinserting my edit citing them?--Allen Nozick (talk) 02:06, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Hi Allen. I got pinged. What type of response would be helpful? Also about your intention to reinsert your edit, be very careful. You have tried it three times and been reverted by two different editors. You'll need a good discussion and solid consensus before another attempt will be seen as anything other than slow edit warring and a DS violation. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:41, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Allen, while I agree that the press haven't made their case about VOA being suddenly corrupted overnight, and I strongly question the need to present this narrative in this article now when there hasn't been time for VOA to change its editorial stance (the narrative is still largely driven by editorial comments like Maddow's, not objective news reportage), we don't seem to have a consensus on either side. But we need more WP:RS sources to support our side of the case before we make more changes. Part of that is going to be examining sources supporting the existing version to determine whether they really do meet WP:RS standards.
The current atmosphere in the press regarding alleged Russian interference with the 2016 elections has unsettling tones of churnalism, partisan political advocacy, and strong POV (as opposed to adherence to the canons of journalism touching on objectivity. Would the Washington Post have gone with the narrative presented by the Nixon intelligence community - which was mentioned in two Articles of Impeachment drawn up by the House Judiciary Committee as being illegally involved in surveillance of Nixon's political enemies? We don't have Woodward, Bernstein or Bradlee to be skeptical about what political appointees in the intelligence community have been saying. But that's the mainstream press we have. I'd say it's appropriate now to seek to insert balance in presentation of the facts. We do need more discussion, if only to convince other editors to increase the credibility of this article by allowing a balanced presentation of the facts. According to WP:NOT, we shouldn't be breathlessly presenting every charge made by, for example, Rachel Maddow, because we're not the press and wikipedia isn't obliged to follow the press's cycles of story coverage. We are obliged to strive for Neutral Point of View, even when the majority of the press does not. loupgarous (talk) 05:00, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Date confusion in 1st sentence
Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
"The United States Intelligence Community officially concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections in January 2017.[1]" where the note says "Nakashima, Ellen (October 7, 2016). 'U.S. government officially accuses Russia of hacking campaign to interfere with elections'. Washington Post. Retrieved January 25, 2017." A Oct 7 2016 cite for a 'conclusion' reached in Jan 2017? Humanengr (talk) 06:15, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
The proposed update to the lead section above does not make that confusion. — JFGtalk 06:49, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
The Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government played in the 2016 United States elections that resulted in the election of President Donald Trump.
Or something similar. It's just not how Wiki articles typically open. Feedback? K.e.coffman (talk) 03:18, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Feedback is that you're insinuating the statement that the interference is an insinuation and that the article is about an insinuation or about the agencies that discovered the interference. This would be like starting the Gravity article by saying this article is about an apple that fell on Sir Isaac Newton's noggin. You're welcome to join the discussion and the editing here of course, but please review the history of the text and previous discussions and settled issues here. This problems with what you're proposing have been discussed at length many times and have been resolved with firm consensus. SPECIFICOtalk 03:26, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, you may want to totally revamp that comment, not make it at all, or start all over again in a more constructive manner. Right now it's very confusingly worded and rather aggressive. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:30, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Alternative version of above, per BullRangifer request -- "The proposed change insinuates that the Russian interference is merely an "allegation". This is contrary to long talk page threads that have endorsed the mainstream reporting that it is a conclusion and that it has been determined The proposed text would be like starting the Gravity article by saying this article is about an apple that fell on Sir Isaac Newton's noggin. Any new proposal should take account of the history of the article text and previous talk page discussions and settled issues here. The issues that editor Coffman raises have been discussed at length many times and have been resolved with firm consensus. Consensus may change, but before proposing such change, we can expect editors to bear in mind the previous work that a large number of editors have contributed to get to the version that's proposed to be scrapped. We've also seen both Thucydides and Coffman violate 1RR within the space of a few hours. It's March Madness in April. SPECIFICO talk 03:26, 10 April 2017 (UTC) SPECIFICOtalk 12:47, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
What would be an alternate opening? This is similar to my question about the quote in the lead -- it's just not how Wiki articles open. They open with "The Subject is [this thing]", not with a declarative sentence. Have any other alternatives been proposed? K.e.coffman (talk) 03:31, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
K.e.coffman, what about starting with what led to the conclusion that something was going on?
"Due to a number of factors, the United States Intelligence Community concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections. These factors included the hacking of the DNC, the release of hacked emails by Wikileaks, events which were postulated in a timeline in a 35--page dossier, many of which have since been corroborated, contacts between Russian individuals and persons in the Trump campaign, and direct and incidental intelligence gathered by American and foreign intelligence agencies.
It starts out in a less abrupt fashion. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:39, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
@K.e.coffman: I think both of the options you suggested are fine. The first option focuses perhaps a bit too squarely on US intelligence, since others (e.g., American politicians) have made accusations of Russian interference as well. For that reason, the second option is perhaps a bit better. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:52, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
In the second option, I'd replace "that resulted in the election of President Donald Trump" with "to benefit Donald Trump," but perhaps some other reworking would be better. I'm just worried that the sentence might be read to mean that the alleged interference resulted in Trump's election, which I don't think is the intended meaning. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:55, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Here's how it would look with the follow-on sentence:
The Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government had played in the 2016 United States elections to benefit Donald Trump. Due to a number of factors, the United States Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was involved; these factor included the hacking of the DNC, the release of hacked emails by Wikileaks, and contacts between Russian individuals and the Trump campaign. A US intelligence community assessment expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chancesand undermine American democracy.[1]
References
^Cite error: The named reference Declassified Report was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
This combines the opener with the follow-on suggestion by BullRangife, and is a better transition to the "A US intelligence community assessment expressed...." Feedback? K.e.coffman (talk) 05:13, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I think it's better than what we have now. However, I still strongly believe that we should include the Russian denial in the opening paragraph, along with the allegations by US intelligence. That's a major part of the story that's been tucked away at the end of the third paragraph.
A couple of other points about the proposed wording:
Even though I proposed it, I'm still not sure about the wording of "to benefit Donald Trump."
"Vladimir Putin personally ordered" - why not simply, "Vladimir Putin ordered"? The word "personally" is redundant here.
"Due to a number of factors, ...; these factors included the hacking ..." This seems clunky to me. I'd just give a more straightforward account of the events, and then say that US intelligence has publicly accused Russia of being behind them. "Following Wikileaks' release of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton advisor John Podesta, the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks. A US intelligence community assessment ...(unchanged)... Clinton's electoral chances. Russian officials have denied any interference in US elections."
One thing I didn't mention, and which might deserve its own talk-page section to discuss: there's no mention in the lede of the effect of the leaked emails. The article is titled "Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections," so one would think the lede would at least briefly touch on what about the leaked emails had an effect on the election (e.g., causing Wasserman-Schultz to resign). -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:53, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: why shouldn't this article, which purports to be about (alleged) Russian interference, not describe the effects of that interference? Indeed, meddling that fails to have any effect is not actually interference, even if it is intended to be. Furthermore, it is unclear why 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak should uniquely contain that information, when this article should theoretically summarize that article's content. -Darouet (talk) 12:56, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Specifico's comment below. This isn't the place to get into such speculation, although the evidence suggests that Putin was very successful/effectful. Look at who won the election, and the division created by it. The rigging of an election to successfully elect a super (most) unpopular president against the will of the majority of voters is definitely an "effect".
As far as that sub-article, such articles contain lots of detail which isn't included in the mother article (this one). That's the way it works. It's just a matter of editorial judgment which details are mentioned here. Generally only the big outline gets mentioned here, while the smaller details get included in the sub-article. -- BullRangifer (talk) 14:41, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Indeed, the "rigging of an election" would be a very serious issue, and were this true the election should be cancelled. However, no such rigging was discovered, despite numerous accusations thereof, recounts, faithless electors, and whatnot. The only "rigging" that is still being discussed is Trump's allegation that illegal immigrants and dead people voted for Clinton… Well that ain't too serious either, is it? Russians didn't rig the election; at best they had some influence on voters via email leaks (if they are indeed behind that) and via RT propaganda. For this latter point, all media broadcast from a particular POV and voters are smart enough to make up their mind, aren't they? And the volume of Russian-sponsored news was certainly far smaller than the volume of negative campaign propaganda from both sides within the US, as is unfortunately that country's political tradition. — JFGtalk 15:05, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Your OR on "meddling" and "interference" and other topics is not helpful for this discussion. And to what "theory" does your "theoretically" refer? Sounds like WP:OTHERSTUFF -- no goodsky. SPECIFICOtalk 13:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
^Cite error: The named reference Declassified Report was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Agree with the "personally" -- it's just unneeded wordiness. Not sure that I feel there's a strong need to put Russia's denial in the first para -- of course they would deny it :-). But I could go either way.
I'm slightly more concerned about including "and undermine American democracy" (which was added after I implemented the edit). This is a very strong statement, and implies that "American democracy" is quite easily undermined. I doubt that even the Russians think that can do that. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:58, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
(ec) This is definitely an improvement. Leaving out "personally" is no problem, at least to me. It's unnecessary. The part about undermining American democracy is quite important to keep. This is about Putin's goal. He is interested in more than just messing with the election. He wants to destabilize American democracy, and it turned out it was much easier to do than he expected. I understand the champagne flowed freely! That's why the cyber warfare hasn't slowed down at all. The Russian military has been very open and described their new warfare doctrine as 3/4 cyber and 1/4 conventional, with the cyber warfare as a constant and non-stop feature. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:52, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Please restore it in some manner, as that was Putin's primary goal. Here's the original quote:
"We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.""
There is not much to support the contention that "Putin wanted to undermine American democracy". In fact, he repeatedly mocked that assertion whenever questioned, e.g. saying "Does anyone seriously think that Russia can influence the choice of the American people? Is America some kind of banana republic? America is a great power. If I’m wrong, correct me."[3] — JFGtalk 07:30, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I support K.e.coffman's proposed lead sentence and will include it in the article. — JFGtalk 07:39, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Done with some copyediting to avoid redundancies. — JFGtalk 08:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Same here. The fact that the ODNIrepresents seventeen agencies is a fact about the ODNI, not the about the report. The 17 agencies did not all contribute to the report. Guccisamsclub (talk) 09:33, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I Oppose the proposed wording and request that the lead be returned to the status quo. We have had many discussions rejecting similar wording that cast doubt on the conclusions represented in the vast majority of reliable sources. While the previous wording sounds like breaking news, this can easily be fixed. For example:
In January 2017, the United States Intelligence Community officially concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Hillary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency".- MrX 11:55, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
ETA: Also, the construct "ARTICLE_TITLE refers to..." is poor writing style.- MrX 12:00, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: I agree that the first two sentences need tweaking, but I think the third is excellent. Also, as The Four Deuces has repeatedly stated, and as I have as well, what intelligence agencies state or express can be known and is very different from what they internally (and sometimes contradictorily) conclude. Lastly, the removal of the long quote eyesore at the outset of the lead is a welcome development. -Darouet (talk) 13:05, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Darouet, please reflect on whether you have RS to support your assertions "repeatedly stated..." or whether you are repeating personal conjecture, OR, and fringe POV narratives. If you have RS, then your arguments will bear some weight here so it is in your interest to make fact-based and documented assertions that are not just personal concerns. SPECIFICOtalk 13:12, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
According to this logic the BBC and Reuters are "fringe POV." -Darouet (talk) 21:47, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I also Oppose the new wording. The prominent placement of "alleged" in the first sentence of the article is not neutral to the bulk of reliable source coverage. Some RS's do use the word, but very few seem to be seriously questioning the conclusion. Speaking of "conclusions"...who knows what the IC's internal discussions are about, but this is splitting hairs more than RSs do about the matter. Given the bulk of coverage, it would be genuinely surprising if the internal IC opinions were different from coverage in the press. Insinuating that this difference exists without evidence is original research. Geogene (talk) 16:55, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I think the new wording is much better than before. I also share Darouet's concern about private "conclusions" versus public statements. I wouldn't find it at all surprising if internal IC opinions were different from coverage in the press, since that's historically often been the case (these are secretive organizations, after all). But that's a problem in both the old and the new version of the opening paragraph, and the new opening is definitely better. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:03, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Support the revised wording. No agency 'concluded that 'x'. The 10/7/2016 DNI report stated “The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident …”; The 1/6/2017 DNI report stated "high confidence in these judgments" where 'high confidence' indicates "still carry a risk of being wrong". The RS's that reported "concluded" are not 'reliable'. The editors here voting to use 'concluded' wording should arguably be barred as unqualified from editing this or any other article involving such reports. Humanengr (talk) 21:03, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
So you would be equally fine with some form of "confident that" instead of "concluded"? Geogene (talk) 21:14, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
@Geogene: Yes, as I indicate below in the RfC. Would that work for you? Would you be interested in a joint RfC to that effect? Humanengr (talk) 19:51, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Midnight massacre
Yesterday, a handful of editors made far-reaching fundamental changes to the article based on a brief and thinly-populated talk thread filled with circular "I agree with..." among a small group. These changes go against many talk page threads that were joined by 10-20 editors, including RfC and open discussions that contradict the POV inserted yesterday, (e.g. as I mentioned above, the insinuation that the Russian interference is merely an "allegation". This recent material, including as MrX points out, the poorly-written lede language, should be undone so that talk can proceed in an orderly and constructive manner. If necessary, we can add a summary of current consensus as in the Donald Trump talk page, to avoid this kind of disruption in the future. SPECIFICOtalk 12:29, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Not a good WP editing model when the only 4 dissenting editors all appear within an hour or so, while the other 20-30 whose (mainstream RS) work they reject are caught napping. SPECIFICOtalk 13:03, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Oh please SPECIFICO, quit the conspiracy theories about editor collusion. Stick to discussing the contents towards article improvement. — JFGtalk 13:12, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
If and when reliable sources such as mainstream media refer to the allegations as facts, so will we. In the meantime, we must follow content policy. For your assurance, I have no contact with any other editors about this article. TFD (talk) 13:32, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
TFD: I have been doing a systematic review of global news sources and they have and continue to refer to these allegations as "allegations," or "possible involvement," or "possible interference..." Sometimes it's so consistent it's clearly an editorial policy. I will post shortly, it's taken some time to go through all this. -Darouet (talk) 21:46, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
OMG such sensitivities. How on earth could either of the gentlemen from the USA think I was promoting conspiracy theories? However the fact remains that consensus requires the participation of more than the first 4 editors to show up at the talk page. I would have thought that fact would not be misconstrued as an allegation. SPECIFICOtalk 17:11, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Oh yeah! (american expression) That reminds me. See the open RfC below this thread?? And at [4]. Yes I see it. I see them both! Well, doesn't that kinda (american talk) mean that there was no consensus to pry the rejected POV "allegation" nonsense into the article in the wee hours yesterday? Yes, that's right. And BTW, the editor who violated 1RR by removing "putin personally" and the editor who removed "and undermine American democracy" -- those were points that were specifically articulated in the cited source, you know, the docusment that we're supposed to reflect as NPOV V RS Wikiputians. I hope the two 1RR perps will undo their violations shortly. I do hope so. SPECIFICOtalk 17:23, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I was surprised to wake up this morning to find the article rewritten. I tried to respond/add to SPECIFICO's comment, but there is something wrong with the edit flow on this page. Objective3000 (talk) 21:25, 10 April 2017 (UTC) — The confusion arose from having an RfC presented as a transclusion, which interferes with editing in other threads. Restoring your comment where you were trying to insert it. — JFGtalk 07:47, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
The concerns raised at the beginning of this section conveniently support a desire to have our article support one particular narrative for this article. If consensus is discarded when it goes against the desires of the editors who oppose it, that's not a valid objection. The prior consensus was reached when many of us were unaware of the existence of this article at all. We ought to all review WP:OWN here - no one owns this article or has "seniority" in changing it or proposing changes to it.
When more editors become aware of this article's existence and have valid objections to the way it's worded or how it treats living persons, that's a new consensus being debated, and it has to be respected, as long as it isn't arrived at in ways which violate our guidelines. As it is, I have strong reservations about how the article echoes some mainstream press sources and ignores others when it's convenient to the narrative some editors wish to see in the article. We need to all re-read WP:POV and WP:OWN, to make sure none of us are asserting ownership of the article or trying to use it to promote a political narrative. loupgarous (talk) 18:08, 10 April 2017 (UTC).
Americana Scarecrow (516752575)loupgarous Try responding to the issue at hand, and not to an alternative scenario so that any new consensus is generated from reasoned discussion. What you have done, referring to a counterfactual scenario is what the Americans quaintly call a "strawman." Edits contrary to an ongoing RfC have nothing in common with what your statement above. Eventually the whole bit will be restored to the previous version and a the ad hominems and recriminations will fly once more. SPECIFICOtalk 13:06, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Right-O (american idiom) but the current RfC is affirming the "prior consensus", so the paleo version may well end up with a vote of confidence. Your reservation is noted, and will be filed with the other non-consensus views. BTW, please don't get into the desires and longings of other editors. It just doesn't help the decision making process here, so my hope is that you'll stick to the content and sourcing issues. SPECIFICOtalk 18:40, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Hmm SPECIFICO, you sure lean heavily on those American mannerisms, and all other kinds of Americanisms. I wish you'd spend more time making cogent and literate statements in standard English. If I were of a conspiratorial mindset, I'd say you're overcompensating for the fact that u ain't from around here. Hmmm... Guccisamsclub (talk) 22:26, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
It would be more helpful, SPECIFICO, if you confined your remarks to the facts under consideration. Other editors have already admonished you for your combative tone elsewhere in this discussion. As other editors have stated above, I don't have on-wiki or off-wiki contact with other editors regarding this article outside this page as this discussion evolves. Speaking strictly for myself, I am alarmed to the degree that this article seems to present POV statements about several living persons as factual when they have not yet been proven here or in the mainstream press. That is the sole basis for my concern that this article has continuing WP:BLP issues.
I also note you spend a large amount of space in this discussion disgressing into what you label as "(american idiom)" which appears to actually be dated British and/or Commonwealth idiom of the sort Terry-Thomas would have used in 1960s cinema. It's not pertinent to the issues we're discussing (namely, POV content in a specific Wikipedia article).
As far as what you call "non-consensus views", it's not useful to discard other editors' ideas as being "non-consensus" before the consensus has even been reached. As a fellow editor, I invite you to help build a consensus with comments that are less combative in nature and less critical of what you imagine to be other editors' national diction. It's difficult to decide whether you're honestly mistaken or are simply trying to provoke other editors in an off-topic side conversation, but it has no place here.
Accusing other editors of collusion, lampooning what you represent to be their diction, and wrongly characterizing their comments as "non-consensus" while a consensus is still being built are typical of behavior mentioned in WP:WIAPA. Please consider joining the rest of us in building a consensus on the issues before us. Thank you. loupgarous (talk) 01:37, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I don't make personal remarks on article talk pages, and neither should you. You're welcome to pay me a visit on my personal talk page. Don't insinuate counterfactual premises into any such statements, however. Thanks. SPECIFICOtalk 01:46, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Voter registration systems hacked
Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
[5] We are completely missing any info about this in the article.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:47, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Good point. It should be mentioned. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:46, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Horse down heads up
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 7 years ago76 comments15 people in discussion
The awkward attempt to fit the lede into an unsuitable format has been supported on talk by the claim that WP:OTHERSTUFF, i.e. the lede of this article should begin with a sentence in the same form as the lede for an article about an object or a person. "X is a,b,c" But this is not only inapt, it's also not what's done on hundreds of other articles that deal with subjects that are not objects. To name one, Social policy of Donald Trump. It's not surprising that the re-write is a mess, because it was done unilaterally and hastily on the fly. Many times, the POV-tagging editors were encouraged to pursue their concerns by proposing reasoned alternatives that would stand up to scrutiny on talk. In the cases when such proposals were raised, consensus rejected them and the current version ignores and violates an ongoing RfC that is about to be closed, likely rejecting the weaselly denial that the Russians in fact meddled in the US elections. So we're going to see the recent disruption reverted, just as other such disruptions have been reverted on many American Politics related articles. Instead of tagging and pointless mass deletions, I suggest that editors who reject the current consensus (once it is restored) make a succinct list of their proposed alterations and present them in an orderly and collegial format for discussion. SPECIFICOtalk 13:28, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
It's evident that opinions are roughly evenly split about radically revising the lead to cast doubt on the Russian interference which, as I understand, is widely-accepted reality. Those wishing to made such changes have the burden of seeking and obtaining consensus. It would be helpful if they could demonstrate that the large majority of sources support their preferred viewpoint.- MrX 14:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
I saw it too and agree with your revert. The lead was improperly changed to represent the "interference" as unproven allegations. They are not unproven according to the sources. My very best wishes (talk) 14:43, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Mr. X has done the thankless and inevitable task of correcting the disruptive mass deletion of stable lede content. Any dissent should be brought to this talk page in a clear, orderly and reasoned advocacy. I caution those who tagged POV and who participated in the mass deletion not to reinsert their version without explicit prior consensus here. SPECIFICOtalk 15:03, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
I also support the edit. Geogene (talk) 15:08, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
It wasn't a "mass deletion." Several editors reworked the lede (particularly the opening paragraph) into a form which
is better written.
conforms better with an encyclopedic style.
better summarizes the subject.
is more neutral.
The best way forward, in my opinion, is to work with the reformulated lede here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:44, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
That's a horrible suggestion but let's wait to hear from others. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 17:51, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
@Thucydides411: Actually, I think it is poorly written per my previous comment. It uses passive voice, WP:WEASEL words, and deviates from our style guideline in several instances. It is less neutral in that it represents a minority view that the Russian interference is alleged, when in fact, it is generally accepted as fact by most sources. I am very receptive to revising the status quo version so that it is clearer and properly summarizes the article. I suggest that we take it from the top, sentence by sentence, until we come up with something that works for (most) everyone.- MrX 18:08, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: The revised lead section that you reverted with comment "Alleged" does not represent the preponderance of sourcesdid not even say that Russian interference was alleged. Please read before reverting. Also, as you mass-reverted many individual edits, I would appreciate seeing your rationale for rejecting each specific change, e.g. what's wrong with this, this or that? — JFGtalk 19:56, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
How about you work on something you feel might be acceptable to the community here and then you can discuss your "step by step" rationale for each component of your proposed edit. Assigning work to others is not really helpful. The rationale for the consensus version X restored is "consensus". SPECIFICOtalk 20:08, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for assigning me more work while criticizing my allegedly assigning work to others. How about you offer something constructive rather than acting as Ye Olde Guardian Of Alleged Consensus? — JFGtalk 20:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
But i'm a good sport so I'll pick one of my changes: look here for example: I arguably clarified the cumbersome wording while removing an instance of the dreaded "alleged" word. See, you're unhappy even when I agree with you… — JFGtalk 20:18, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: Your bold edit did include the word "alleged" and it continues to be argued by others on this page in spite of actual evidence showing that sources are overwhelmingly treating the Russian interference as an accepted fact. I've already explained why the rewording was not an improvement. It's poor style to state the article title verbatim and then obliquely describe it as referring to the role of it's primary actor. The Russian government did not have a role; they did it. The very next sentence starts with a preposition, and is awkward. It seems to attempt to deflect responsibility for the interference onto the DNC, Podesta, or Wikileaks. Why not be direct?- MrX 21:25, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, my first edit in a long series still had that word, as copied from a talk page discussion, and I later removed one instance of it while another editor removed another instance. Net result, your key objection was already moot when you reverted, so I think we can safely proceed from the new text, which had plenty of other improvements, instead of coming back to some arbitrary "status quo" version. Now your other arguments seem to be centered on the first couple of sentences in the lead, and those can surely be improved. I do not read the new wording as giving undue responsibility to the DNC or Wikileaks; the facts and sequence of events are simply explained chronologically and concisely. But let's improve: instead of saying Following the release of emails […] the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks we could turn it around by saying The US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was responsible for the release of emails […] Would that feel better from your point of view? Is there anything beyond the first two sentences that you are uncomfortable with? — JFGtalk 21:39, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
The fact that "Russian interference" is alleged isn't a minority opinion. It's how most reliable sources treat the issue. You've been consistently mixing up what reliable sources say ("officials say," "the U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that," etc.) with what the intelligence officials they cite say ("the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions," etc.). The reformulated lede makes it very clear that US intelligence has stated Russia interfered in US elections. The fact that they have stated that is what reliable sources report.
It uses passive voice, WP:WEASEL words, and deviates from our style guideline in several instances. No, it doesn't.
It doesn't use passive voice (I just checked again, and the reformulated first paragraph is all in active voice).
"Alleged" is not always a weasel word. In some cases (such as this), it's the most accurate description available.
You can't just say, "deviates from our style guidelines in several instances." That's incredibly vague and unhelpful. It sounds a lot like WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT.
Rather than using the poorly written first paragraph we have now, which doesn't give an overview of the subject, I think we should work from the reformulated lede. The latter seems to have a lot of support above on this talk page. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:16, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
@Thucydides411: That's a horrible suggestion and it will result in you being topic-banned with probability 1. If you are convinced of the merit of that version, (which is quite inarticulate, and I agree with @MrX: above is horribly written) you may copy it to a sandbox page and work on it and then when you think it has reached its most compelling, exquisite, and policy-compliant form, you can propose it or invite the outside world to comment. That would be a good way to pursue your objectives. SPECIFICOtalk 19:49, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
I do not find SPECIFICO continued uncivilly to be suitable at this Talk page: That's a horrible suggestion and it will result in you being topic-banned with probability 1. Please focus on content, not contributors. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:11, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Source discussion
(edit conflict) @Thucydides411: Here are quotes from the top news search results for "russia election interference" (omitting opinion pieces, unreliable sources, and sources that only quote third parties):
"Russia’s intervention in the American presidential election was arguably the basis for one of the most important political scandals in modern history. Indeed, it’s the subject of an ongoing counter-intelligence investigation, which includes an examination of whether members of Donald Trump’s political operation colluded with a foreign adversary’s illegal scheme." — MSNBC
"A host of issues are responsible, topped by Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election and Moscow’s support for separatists in Ukraine, and have prompted U.S. and European sanctions" — Washington Post
"The CIA early last summer obtained evidence of Russia's efforts to help Trump, The Times reported, and concluded before the FBI did that Russia's goal was not just to undermine the election, but to boost Trump's chances of winning." — Business Insider
"As Senate minority leader, Reid was among the lawmakers that Brennan had briefed on the scope of Russian interference in the election. " — Vanity Fair
"Russia's interference was not made public until months after Trump's November 8 election victory, with US intelligence chiefs openly accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of masterminding a hacking and disinformation campaign to skew the election results." — WION
"It was not until early December, a month after the election, that it became publicly known in news reports that the C.I.A. had concluded that Moscow’s motivation was to get Mr. Trump elected." — The New York Times
"James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, confirmed early in Monday’s hearing that the bureau is indeed, as has been widely reported, investigating the interference by Russian intelligence in the 2016 American presidential election — including any possible collusion by aides and associates of President Trump." — The New York Times
"Vladimir Putin haters woke up this morning to the Russian president finally voicing his thoughts to the American media about alleged Russian interference int the U.S. presidential election." — Forbes
"McCain, who called for a select committee to investigate the meddling, pointed out that the Russians are trying to influence the French election, which has its first round of voting next month. The senator also said that Moscow was increasing aggression in Ukraine, which would need aid from the U.S." — Bloomberg
"Russian television station RT reported that Levashov was arrested under a U.S. international arrest warrant and was suspected of being involved in hacking attacks linked to alleged interference in last year's U.S. election." — CNBC
"And like any good piece of political satire, the joke took aim at something serious: allegations that Russia tried to undermine the 2016 presidential election in the United States and is trying to influence votes elsewhere." — Chicago Tribune
"With its House counterpart imploding thanks to the late-night excursions and executive coziness of its chairman Devin Nunes, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee soldiers on in its investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election." — Tech Crunch
"The committee held its first public hearing on Russian meddling in the US election Thursday with calls for nonpartisanship, citing ongoing foreign interference that threatens "the heart of our democracy."" — CNN
"Some Democratic lawmakers charged last week that Russia’s election meddling amounted to an act of war, and others have accused Moscow of “attacking” the United States through its hacking." — The Hill
"U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia conducted a covert hacking operation to undermine the U.S. election process, which evolved into an attempt to help Trump win the White House. They also believe with "a high level of confidence" that Putin became personally involved in the campaign to interfere in the election." — NBC News
Sources that say "allege/alleged/allegations" are in red. In this sampling of top results, 4 out of 5 sources treat the Russian interference as accepted fact. For most, it is a matter of extent and who in the Trump administration were involved. I await your analysis to support your claim "The fact that "Russian interference" is alleged isn't a minority opinion. It's how most reliable sources treat the issue.- MrX 20:21, 11 April 2017 (UTC), - MrX 21:27, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: You may well continue a source battle with Thucydides411, however you are fighting a non-issue, because the version you reverted did not say that Russian intervention was alleged. Please examine the text and answer my comment above. I'd like the article deadlock to be lifted so we can all move forward and improve it bit by bit. — JFGtalk 20:30, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Folks, the way this kind of massive POV re-write is handled is with a full alternative draft proposal. This approach is often effective and successful on WP. I strongly discourage anyone from getting piecemeal into the weeds in an unstructured and multidimensional talk page discussion when the end point is not clearly defined. SPECIFICOtalk 21:00, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Done, see RfC below. — JFGtalk 04:20, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
First of all, JFG is correct. But second of all, you need to take a closer look at your sources, with two things in mind:
Don't cite opinion pieces. The very first source you posted is Rachel Maddow's blog, for crying out loud. Stick to the non-opinion section.
There are many synonyms for "alleged." The simplest of them is to quote the allegation. You'll notice that most of your sources are quoting various American officials and politicians who have made the allegation. That's very different from stating the allegation to be true.
With that in mind, I'll go through your sources one-by-one:
Same list of sources as above
"Russia’s intervention in the American presidential election was arguably the basis for one of the most important political scandals in modern history. Indeed, it’s the subject of an ongoing counter-intelligence investigation, which includes an examination of whether members of Donald Trump’s political operation colluded with a foreign adversary’s illegal scheme." — MSNBC
This is Rachel Maddow's blog. It's an opinion piece.
"A host of issues are responsible, topped by Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election and Moscow’s support for separatists in Ukraine, and have prompted U.S. and European sanctions" — Washington Post
The Washington Post is one of the few major newspapers that does seem to have an editorial line of claiming Russian intervention to be a fact. Take that for what you will, but their editorial policy is different from most major outlets.
"The CIA early last summer obtained evidence of Russia's efforts to help Trump, The Times reported, and concluded before the FBI did that Russia's goal was not just to undermine the election, but to boost Trump's chances of winning." — Business Insider
I wasn't aware that we consider Business Insider to be a reliable source. I would have stuck with major newspapers. But note how this article attributes the claim of Russian interference specifically to the CIA and the FBI.
"As Senate minority leader, Reid was among the lawmakers that Brennan had briefed on the scope of Russian interference in the election. " — Vanity Fair
Again, this is discussing the CIA's assessments.
"Russia's interference was not made public until months after Trump's November 8 election victory, with US intelligence chiefs openly accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of masterminding a hacking and disinformation campaign to skew the election results." — WION
I've never heard of WION News. Are they reliable? But nevertheless, you'll notice that they specifically attribute the claim of Russian interference to the CIA and the FBI.
"It was not until early December, a month after the election, that it became publicly known in news reports that the C.I.A. had concluded that Moscow’s motivation was to get Mr. Trump elected." — The New York Times
This is exactly my point, again. The NY Times reports what the CIA's conclusions are.
"James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, confirmed early in Monday’s hearing that the bureau is indeed, as has been widely reported, investigating the interference by Russian intelligence in the 2016 American presidential election — including any possible collusion by aides and associates of President Trump." — The New York Times
Again, the NY Times is discussing the FBI investigation. I'll admit that the NY Times swings back and forth on this, but I think that along with the Washington Post, it's one of the few major newspapers to ever state "Russian interference" as a fact.
"Vladimir Putin haters woke up this morning to the Russian president finally voicing his thoughts to the American media about alleged Russian interference int the U.S. presidential election." — Forbes
"McCain, who called for a select committee to investigate the meddling, pointed out that the Russians are trying to influence the French election, which has its first round of voting next month. The senator also said that Moscow was increasing aggression in Ukraine, which would need aid from the U.S." — Bloomberg
Where in this do you read Bloomberg asserting the "meddling" is true? They're describing McCain's statements.
"Russian television station RT reported that Levashov was arrested under a U.S. international arrest warrant and was suspected of being involved in hacking attacks linked to alleged interference in last year's U.S. election." — CNBC
"And like any good piece of political satire, the joke took aim at something serious: allegations that Russia tried to undermine the 2016 presidential election in the United States and is trying to influence votes elsewhere." — Chicago Tribune
"With its House counterpart imploding thanks to the late-night excursions and executive coziness of its chairman Devin Nunes, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee soldiers on in its investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election." — Tech Crunch
Tech Crunch. There are hundreds of high-quality newspapers around the world, but you're citing Tech Crunch. I wouldn't determine our wording on the basis of a tech website's editorial policy. I wouldn't even assume that Tech Cruch has a firm editorial policy.
"The committee held its first public hearing on Russian meddling in the US election Thursday with calls for nonpartisanship, citing ongoing foreign interference that threatens "the heart of our democracy."" — CNN
That's the subject of the committee hearings. I don't see any statement by CNN about the truth or untruth of "Russian meddling."
"Some Democratic lawmakers charged last week that Russia’s election meddling amounted to an act of war, and others have accused Moscow of “attacking” the United States through its hacking." — The Hill
The Hill Blog is paraphrasing Democratic lawmakers. Again, separate the newspaper's voice (in this case, the blog's voice) from the people it's paraphrasing.
"U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia conducted a covert hacking operation to undermine the U.S. election process, which evolved into an attempt to help Trump win the White House. They also believe with "a high level of confidence" that Putin became personally involved in the campaign to interfere in the election." — NBC News
Yes, that is what US intelligence agencies have publicly concluded. NBC News makes no commentary here on whether or not those conclusions are correct.
Now, I'll add a couple of examples from high-quality news sources:
Die USA erklären den Kreml zum Täter. Die Gruppe APT28, Hacker im russischen Staatsauftrag, soll während des US-Wahlkampfs verschiedene Ziele in den USA attackiert haben, darunter das Demokratische Wahlkampfkomitee. Solche Behauptungen erfordern hieb- und stichfeste Beweise. Bereits am 14. Dezember hatte die Regierung angekündigt, dass ausführliche Belege vorgelegt würden. Die Details, die FBI und Heimatschutz am Donnerstag veröffentlichten, genügen diesem Anspruch nicht. English: The USA declares the Kremlin to be the culprit. The group APT28, hackers in the service of the Russian state, supposedly attacked various targets in the USA during the US election campaign, including the DNC. Such claims require solid evidence. On 14 December, the government announced that exhaustive evidence would be presented. The details that the FBI and Homeland Security published on Thursday do not meet this standard. — Süddeutsche Zeitung (fixed link)
Moscou est soupçonné d’être à l’origine des piratages du Parti démocrate et d’avoir alimenté une campagne de désinformation contre Hillary Clinton. English: Moscow is suspected of being the source for pirated Democratic party documents and of having helped a disinformation campaign against Hillary Clinton. — Le Monde
The head of a key US congressional investigation into alleged Russian hacking has temporarily stepped down amid an ethics inquiry into him. — BBC News
The charges follow US accusations that Russian intelligence hacked Democratic party servers last year. — Financial Times
Those are four high-quality news sources, all of them describing "Russian interference" as something that is not known with certainty, and as something that US intelligence services and politicians have claimed. The reformulated lede (with the word "alleged") treats the subject in the same way as these sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:36, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
The first source is not MSNBC, it's comments posted by the producer of the Rachel Maddow Show on her blog. But no doubt some news sources will omit qualifiers such as "alleged." The fact is though that most of them, particularly if they are writing about the issue, rather than mentioning it in passing do not express it as a certainty. By the way, the election is over and we will probably know the facts before the next one, so I don't see why you won't let the article reflect what the sources say. TFD (talk) 21:44, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
The article starts with: The United States Intelligence Community officially concluded that the Russian government interfered..." --- This wording is supported by every RS available. The fact that a small group of editors are hell bent on watering this down doesn't change anything, and in the end is just wasting people's time. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 23:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
@Somedifferentstuff: The 2nd and 3rd senctences of the reformulated lede are:
Following the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta by WikiLeaks, the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks. An assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored presidential candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign to harm Clinton's electoral chances and "undermine public faith in the US democratic process."
How is that in any way "watered down"? It looks to me like a neutral description of what the reliable sources say. Beyond the word "alleged," I don't know what it is you take issue with. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:21, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
@Thucydides411:The very first source you posted is Rachel Maddow's blog, for crying out loud. No, it's not. Maddow's blog is at http://www.msnbc.com/maddowblog. I can understand that, as the link to it at the top of the page makes it look like it is, using a slash in that manner suggests folder structure that isn't actually used. Also, business insider is generally considered a reliable news sources. You can check RSN for archived threads, but I recall at least one discussion that was pretty much unanimous that it was good. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 22:48, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
@MjolnirPants: Well, it looks like the article is written by Rachel Maddow's producer. Whether or not this is her blog or the section for her show isn't exactly clear to me, but it is clear that this isn't MSNBC's news section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:17, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
No, it's not. Sorry, it just is. This is a post from The MaddowBlog, as the tags at the bottom and the contents of the stories make clear. This is a blog devoted to exploring issues raised by Maddow on her show (mainly #TrumpRussia). I think Thucydides411 offered a good batch of highly prominent intentional news sources (certainly much more weight than BI), and they must be taken into consideration per wP:SYSTEMICBIAS. Guccisamsclub (talk) 23:20, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411 did not post a good batch of sources. He posted sources that happen to agree with the POV that the Russian interference is alleged. By contrast, I selected the top 15 reliable sources that appeared in a search. Two of Thucydides411's sources are grossly out of date. I'm not a subscriber to the Financial Times so I can't comment on it.- MrX 23:54, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Come on, MrX. I posted articles from SZ, Le Monde, the BBC and FT. Those are four internationally recognized news sources. You can't seriously point to a piece from Rachel Maddow's show/blog as counterweight. And if you actually look at your sources (I went through them above), most of them share my "POV" that "Russian interference" is an allegation. They describe "Russian interference/meddling" as a claim that US intelligence or politicians have made. It's strange to even call the "alleged" phrasing a point of view: it's just a statement of the fact that US intelligence agencies have alleged Russia meddled in the 2016 US Presidential election. As for my sources being "grossly out of date," very little has changed, in terms of evidence, since December. Almost all the publicly available evidence came out last year. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:25, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, you appear to believe that there are political “sides” that editors here support. I and others here have been accused of being on both sides of an issue, one time or another. That’s because we argue for inclusion and/or exclusion of material and wording that favors/disfavors both sides of whatever people think is divided into sides.. And that is because we are only interested in improving an encyclopedia. Decisions are meaningless without knowledge. We are only here to disseminate knowledge, not to sway opinion. Your edits all appear to favor one “side”. That’s but one reason some editors here are not swayed by your arguments. (Off my soapbox now.) Anyone is allowed to delete this edit after a short period. Objective3000 (talk) 00:34, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, most of the 15 sources that I cited are also internationally recognized. So what? I did not post a piece from the Rachel Maddow show, but feel free to discount the MSNBC blog article if it makes you feel any better. My argument is every bit as sound without it.- MrX 01:30, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: That piece says "The Rachel Maddow Show / The MaddowBlog" above the title, and has "rachel-maddow-show" in the URL. It's an opinion piece written by Maddow's producer.
I'm not sure what your argument is. You posted a bunch of sources that cite US intelligence officials and politicians saying Russia interfered in US elections. That proves that the news media is reporting on claims made by US intelligence officials and politicians. It doesn't prove that the news media considers those claims to be true, and in fact, as I showed, a number of major international news outlets - BBC, Financial Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung (one of Germany's leading papers) and Le Monde (France's largest paper) - make it crystal clear in their reporting that "Russian interference" is an allegation. I'm only arguing that we treat this subject in the same way those major news outlets do. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:58, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
No, let's not do that. See every one of my previous comments on this "alleged" nonsense. I have nothing more to say on this topic.- MrX 02:15, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Let's not do what? Follow the BBC, SZ, FT and Le Monde? I really don't see how else to interpret your statement. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:29, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Looks like a cherry pick to me. I've read a lot of news articles about this by now, and there's a lack of sincere doubt about whether Russia meddled in the election. The question now is whether any Trump campaign officials were complicit. Geogene (talk) 02:32, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
"Lack of sincere doubt" sounds remarkably fuzzy to me. Have these news articles stated unambiguously that Russia interfered in US elections? "I don't see doubt in the news sources I read" (paraphrasing, of course) isn't a standard to go by, especially when the BBC is explicitly calling Russian interference "alleged." -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:44, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
You didn’t mention the title of the article your LeMonde quote is from. The title is: "The US Senate is conducting an investigation into Russia’s role in the presidential election", immediately followed by your quote. LeMonde is "describing" (your term) that the US Senate suspects etc. The SZ quote isn’t in the article you linked to.Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 15:43, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
You're right - I gave the wrong URL for the SZ article. I've updated the link with the correct URL. The translation you've given of the Le Monde title is more or less right. Here's a more accurate translation: "Le Sénat américain enquête sur le rôle de la Russie dans la présidentielle" = "The American Senate's Investigation into the Role of Russia in the Presidential Election." Yes, Le Monde is describing the US Senate's suspicions about Russia. It's not endorsing the truth of those suspicions. That's how most reliable sources seem to be handling this issue, in general, and it's how we should handle it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:46, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, no, your translation is not more accurate. "Enquête" in this case is the third person present tense indicative of the verb enquêter (sur qc.). If you wanted to say "the American Senate’s investigation" in French, that would be "l’enquête du Sénat Américain …", AFAIK. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:54, 14 April 2017 (UTC) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:02, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Guccisamsclub: Having a link to the blog at the bottom does not make the page a part of Maddow's blog. I'm sorry, but you're really grasping at straws here. Why would they link to the blog, in a blog post? I mean, come on now. It is pretty obviously not Maddow's blog. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 01:48, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
So pointing out that Maddow's blog follows a different media format than this piece is somehow evidence that this piece is part of Maddow's blog? Really? You're doing a wonderful job of convincing me that you're determined to undermine the reliability of this source by whatever means necessary, and a very poor job of convincing me that this source is unreliable. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 13:12, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@MjolnirPants: I don't understand why we're still talking about the MSNBC piece. It's written by Maddow's producer, has "The Rachel Maddow Show / The MaddowBlog" written above the title, and has "msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/" in the URL. It's clearly not from MSNBC's news section, and it's clearly somehow connected with the Rachel Maddow show (even just by looking at the URL). Can we agree that this source is an opinion piece? I think we're all wasting our time arguing about it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:51, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Finally we can all agree. You are wasting our time with this tendentious bludgeon horsie thing. I note nobody has even chosen to dignify the "RfC" with a !vote. Y'alls should go to a sandbox page and work out a really good carefully considered alternative that you think will pass the mustard. (American idiom) SPECIFICOtalk 17:56, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I have to say I'm a bit bemused that someone would use such tenuous arguments to claim this is a blog post from a specific blog and then, when running out of claims, act exasperated and say arguing is a waste of time. Don't get me wrong, I agree completely that arguing about it is a waste of time. All I did was offer a simple correction to a misstatement. You may notice that I haven't had much participation on this page lately, and that's not an accident. There's only so much POV pushing I can handle. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 18:15, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@MjolnirPants:There's only so much POV pushing I can handle. Just consider what it looks like from my perspective. MrX cited an opinion piece from the website for Rachel Maddow's show as evidence that reliable sources consider "Russian interference" a fact. I pointed out that there's a banner right above the title indicating that this is a Rachel Maddow piece (i.e., not a news article). I would have thought the immediate reaction would be, "My bad, let's discount that source." But instead, we're engaged in a back-and-forth over whether or not a page that has "rachel-maddow-show" in the URL is related to her show, or a proper news article. It is exasperating from my side. That's why I was asking you, flat out, if you'll just agree that this is an opinion piece, so we can move on. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:31, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Fringe POV's on hundreds of articles lament the same. Fringe or denialist perspectives are not entitled to "equal time" with the mainstream representation of the subject. Moreover after the minority POV has been amply heard and aggressively promoted on talk, and rejected, it's time to move on to other ways the article might be improved. SPECIFICOtalk 19:57, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@Thucydides411:I know we've disagreed on a lot, but in truth, your POV isn't the only one I take issue with, nor is it the one I take the most issue with. There is blatant POV pushing coming from the political left, as well, and it frankly drives me insane to see people who's political ideologies substantially mirror my own engaging in behavior which I feel is beneath any serious editor. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 14:15, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@MjolnirPants: From your above post, it looks like you've misjudged my political views. That's actually good, because it shows that I'm not editing according to what my political "POV" would suggest. You see me arguing that the reliable sources are not stating Russian interference as a fact, and you assume I'm some sort of right-winger. But actually, I'm just reading BBC, Associated Press, Reuters, the Financial Times, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Le Monde and other reputable sources describing it as an allegation, and I don't think we should be contradicting them. If you look through MrX's sources, the only one that clearly states Russian interference as a fact is the Rachel Maddow Show source. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to put Rachel Maddow's opinion above the BBC or AP. What's next, Joe Scarborough expresses an opinion on his morning show and we transcribe it here as fact?
I decided to go through and look at how Reuters and AP describe "Russian interference," and they often use the word "alleged":
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is pursuing at least three separate probes relating to alleged Russian hacking of the U.S. presidential elections, according to five current and former government officials with direct knowledge of the situation. — Reuters, 18 Feb. 2017
The charges came amid a swirl of controversies relating to alleged Kremlin-backed hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible links between Russian figures and associates of U.S. President Donald Trump. — Reuters, 16 Mar. 2017
The Senate and House Intelligence Committees and a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary committee have announced they launched investigations into alleged Russian efforts to influence the election through computer hacking. [...] Congressional inquiries into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. elections are gaining momentum as Capitol Hill investigators press intelligence and law enforcement agencies for access to classified documents. — Reuters, 16 Feb. 2017
For Trump, the grievances inherited from Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have been compounded by Russian-backed Syria's chemical weapons attacks, retaliatory U.S. missile strikes, election meddling allegations and Ukraine's unsolved crisis. — Associated Press, 13 Apr. 2017
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has criticized Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election, calling it a hostile act. — Associated Press, 28 Mar. 2017
So who are we going to follow, the Rachel Maddow Show or the major English-language wire agencies? I think the lede, as worked out by K.e.coffman and others, is a good starting point from which to move forward on the article. The primary objection to it seems to be the use of the word "alleged," which from the above, is completely justifiable on the basis of reliable sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:49, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Your listing would be more useful if it was in chronological order, because, as previously "alleged" suspicions are confirmed (which is happening), there is a natural tendency to minimize use of the word "alleged".
It is quite easy to make a search like yours (I have done it), where the word "alleged" is excluded from the search, and find just as many statements which don't use it, therefore your search really isn't worth much. Each search could be seen as an attempt to confirm a bias, and that's about it. Both biases can find evidence for their POV because the word has been used and has not been used. Basically this cancels out the attempt. Only a long timeline comparison of all sources would have any worth, and that's pretty much impossible, and also not worth much, because the question hangs on much more than that one word.
Your search only shows that the word "alleged" has been used many times. No one is denying that, and one would expect it to be used 100% in the beginning of the scandal, and less and less as evidence comes pouring in, as it is. :# The use of "alleged" and other weasel words is standard editorial policy, sometimes all the way until after a conviction in court. Therefore its use has little to do with actual facts, but more of editorial caution to avoid litigation for libel. We do not have to follow that cautious approach. As long as we follow RS, and quote when necessary, we can write whatever is necessary.
The word has also not been used a lot, and I suspect that, as we're seeing the previously unproven allegations proven, we'll also see a tendency to not use the word as much.
They are showing that the utterances and (false) denials from intelligence agencies have been guarded and at times deceptive, not because there was no Russian interference, but because the agencies didn't like their unfinished, supposedly secret, investigation being exposed, and that they have known there was actual interference, and also collusion, far more than we have suspected, and that it goes back to at least 2015.
This interference has been planned and coordinated for a long time, with many players involved, and, for some odd reason, most (or all?) of the American ones are Trump associates, family, campaign staff, and advisers. How odd.... If you think that's just a coincidence, then I know where you can find a really cheap way to buy Trump Towers. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:31, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: Thanks for looking through the sources. I'll respond to each point, but there's a general observation I'd like to make first. The alleged interference this article is about is the supposed Russia hacking of the DNC and Podesta's email account, and the leaking of emails to Wikileaks. When you say that more and more is being confirmed each day, you're talking more generally about any ties between any of Trump's advisors/associates with Russia or Russians (e.g., person X did business in Russia, person Y spoke with the Russian ambassador, etc.). The allegations of Russian hacking into the DNC and Podesta's emails, and the leaking of those emails to the press is a different matter.
The evidence of Russian hacking came out before the articles I posted. The last US intelligence report came out in January 2017, and the first article I cite above is from mid-February 2017. AP and Reuters were fully aware of all the presently available evidence of Russian hacking when they wrote "alleged" in those articles.
My point isn't that every source uses the word "alleged." There is more than one way to express the idea that something is alleged. A newspaper may, for example, quote US intelligence officials, without taking a position on whether or not the intelligence officials' statements are correct. In that case, it's clear that the newspaper is describing allegations. Or the newspaper may use a synonym of "alleged," such as "accused." My point is that almost no reliable sources say definitively that Russia interfered in the US elections, whereas a great many reliable sources use "alleged" or synonymous language.
I think the reason why so many reliable sources use the phrase "alleged" is because they honestly don't know if Russia interfered in US elections. I base that belief on the fact that I've seen almost no reliable sources reporting it as fact, and I see this sort of cautious language in most of the reliable sources I read. I don't think we should decide for ourselves that the accusations are true. I think we should show the same caution as most reliable sources do.
Just because the word "alleged" is not used, that does not in any way mean that the newspaper is endorsing the view that Russia interfered in US elections.
I'll give you an illustration of that last point. Above, you cited this passage from an NBC News piece:
U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia conducted a covert hacking operation to undermine the U.S. election process, which evolved into an attempt to help Trump win the White House. They also believe with "a high level of confidence" that Putin became personally involved in the campaign to interfere in the election. — NBC News
NBC News isn't endorsing the conclusions of US intelligence agencies there. NBC News is simply telling us what US intelligence agencies have concluded. When a newspaper quotes someone, you can't assume the newspaper is telling you that person is correct or truthful. In fact, that NBC News piece begins this way:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election could be interpreted by some as an "act of war." — The same NBC News article, (emphasis added)
This is pretty typical of what I see from reliable sources. They report on the fact that US intelligence officials or politicians are saying something, without endorsing it, and they often use the word "alleged," or something that has an equivalent meaning. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:00, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, yes, a news source can report a fact without endorsing it. That NBC quote (which must have been shared by someone else, because I don't think I did it) confirms that "U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded..." That's what we should write. We write what they concluded, without endorsing it.
You wrote "The alleged interference this article is about is the supposed Russia hacking of the DNC and Podesta's email account, and the leaking of emails to Wikileaks." Yes, but also the alleged collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russians, of which the hacking and leaks were a part. The dossier describes Trump's paying the hackers for doing it. It should all be covered in this article. If any other aspects come to light, they too will become part of this article. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:06, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, it was actually MrX who posted the NBC link - but it is interesting to see that the articles being used as supposed evidence that news media treats Russian interference as a fact actually turn out not to when one takes the time to read them through.
The lede that you and I helped formulate together with K.e.coffman included a sentence very similar to "US intelligence agencies have concluded," along with a sentence describing "Russian interference" as an allegation. That would be entirely in line with how major newspapers describe the subject. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:24, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I hope you can appreciate the irony of using a blatant fallacy to argue that you have no political POV in a discussion in which you are pushing a political POV. I doubt it, but I still hope. I would like to rescind what I said earlier: There is one thing that bothers me more than someone who shares ideologies with me engaging in disingenuous argumentation, and that is an editor who will blatantly lie about their ideology. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 22:12, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Your last post really used up whatever reserves of good faith assumptions I had left. I take it you have no answer to AP and Reuters regularly using "alleged" to describe Russian interference. If all you're going to contribute here is to insult me, then you should show yourself out. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:18, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Explaining to you the effect your arguments have on me is not an insult, and I know you're intelligent enough to realize this, so please stop with the silly dramatics. I've already addressed the various uses of the word "alleged" both to you and to several others, dozens of times over the past few months, including within the past few days in this very thread. If you can't recognize what I've said or remember when I've said it more verbosely in the past, then you're just going to have to deal with not being able to argue with me anymore. Suffice it to say, your may be completely factually accurate about all the various uses of the word in sources, and that still does not actually address the question of whether we should use it ourselves. Now, feel free to respond with a pointless word salad of links to different parts of WP:RS because I'm sure you're not going to actually parse my response and continue this discussion in any way other than repeating the same thing you've said a hundred times before. I'm not going to end up reading it because I really just don't care what you think about this issue any more. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 00:35, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I went back and read through some of the talk page sections where "alleged" is discussed, looking for your comments. This thread in particular stuck out: [7]. The only argument against the word "alleged" that I saw you make was that it would somehow attract "every alt-right editor with a hard-on for Putin/Trump slashfic". What reading through the thread also reminded me of was that you were aggressively insulting editors you disagreed with, just like you insulted me above.
In this thread, you haven't addressed the use of "alleged." You've argued that an article that has "rachel-maddow-show" in the URL isn't connected to the Rachel Maddow Show. Go ahead and read through your comments again. If I've missed something, quote it back to me here or link a diff. I'm serious: I'll read any objection you have, because I'd really like to know if there's any serious rationale for not using "alleged." -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:00, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Other comments: Investigation
I don't believe that the sources presented above disclaim the use of "alleged interference" in the article.
"Russia’s intervention in the American presidential election is the subject of an ongoing counter-intelligence investigation...." — MSNBC
"The CIA early last summer obtained evidence of Russia's efforts to help Trump, The Times reported, and concluded before the FBI did that Russia's goal was not just to undermine the election, but to boost Trump's chances of winning." — Business Insider
"As Senate minority leader, Reid was among the lawmakers that Brennan had briefed on the scope of Russian interference in the election. " — Vanity Fair
"Russia's interference was not made public until months after Trump's November 8 election victory, with US intelligence chiefs openly accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin ..." — WION
"It was not until early December, a month after the election, that it became publicly known in news reports that the C.I.A. had concluded that Moscow’s motivation was to get Mr. Trump elected." — The New York Times
"James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, confirmed early in Monday’s hearing that the bureau is indeed (...) investigating the interference by Russian intelligence ...." — The New York Times
"... the Senate Select Intelligence Committee soldiers on in its investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election." — Tech Crunch
"The committee held its first public hearing on Russian meddling in the US election Thursday ...."" — CNN
"Some Democratic lawmakers charged last week that Russia’s election meddling amounted to an act of war ...." — The Hill
"U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia conducted a covert hacking operation ...." — NBC News
What I see here are "charges", "investigations", "hearings", "conclusions by intelligence agencies", etc. The article is really about the Investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. So we either change the title to this, or use "alleged" as these accusations have not been proven in the court of law. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:40, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
"Court of law" isn't the standard we use on Wikipedia. We basically reflect what the sources say, that's it. And by this point, most sources take the existence of interference as a fact, not an "allegation".Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:58, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: I posted the same sources as you did, and I don't come to the same conclusions. Please see above. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:01, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
@K.e.coffman: Your examples don't support that POV that a preponderance of sources describe the Russian interference as alleged. In several cases, you quote third parties, which I intentionally avoided. The difference is between attributed statements of third parties and the voice of each published source itself. Also, the investigations are not to determine if the interference occurred; they are to determine who in Trump's orbit are complicit.- MrX 01:24, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm not following; this is exactly the same content you have posted, edited for concision. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:27, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I struck a portion of my comment which I didn't articulate well. The point is that there is a difference in what a source reports a third party saying and what the source itself concludes. It is clear to me that these sources accept that the interference occurred. Some are more explicit than others, but very few express any doubt at all.- MrX 01:46, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
It isn't at all clear to me from reading those sources that they accept that the interference occurred. You're reading a lot into these sources that isn't obvious from just reading through them. When a newspaper quotes an intelligence official, we can't just assume that the newspaper thinks the content of that official's statement is true. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:52, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
all this belongs at the RfC on the use of "alleged" -- nothing here is going to outweigh whatever is decided by the close of that RfC. Please apply any efforts where they will might conceivably have some effect on the outcome. SPECIFICOtalk 01:55, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
"It isn't at all clear to me from reading those sources" - well, that might have something to do with your reading of these sources. Come on. Most sources accept the fact that interference occurred. The only thing that's uncertain is the scope of this interference and its purpose. And even the latter has come into sharper focus since this article was started.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:58, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
"Most sources accept the fact that interference occurred." How do you tell that? I can't see it from reading the sources. When a newspaper reports what the CIA says, that doesn't mean that they accept those CIA statements as truthful. I really don't understand what in those articles leads you to think that they accept "Russian interference" as fact. On the other hand, we have a lot of articles from reliable sources that explicitly express doubt about claims of Russian interference, or phrase it as an allegation. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:40, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
MrX provided sources above.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:50, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I read the cited passages, and I don't see how MrX infers that they "accept the fact that interference occurred." They don't state that Russia interfered in the US elections (aside from Maddow's blog). It seems like you're asking me to read between the lines and infer something that isn't explicitly stated. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:21, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes. Perhaps the difference is that you consider that stating the interference as a fact ("Russia’s intervention in the American presidential election...") and that interference being under investigation ("is the subject of an ongoing counter-intelligence investigation....") are mutually exclusive. They're not. Something can be true AND in the process of being investigated at the same time.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:59, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
That's from the Rachel Maddow piece. Can we agree to stick to news sources in this discussion? -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:15, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
There's no doubt as to the Russians' interference in the US and other Western democratic processes. In the USA there are several investigations as to the nature and extent of the interference. Some of these investigations are for national defense purposes, so when the US Senate and the CIA investigate they are doing it for civil defense. Other investigations, such as the FBI or the US Attorneys of various districts, are investigating whether criminal violations of law need to be prosecuted. Anywhere in the world one can view the satellite feeds of the American morning tube and see deadpan figures like Wilson Geist and Cuomo frere stating "Russian interference". I know airtime is precious, but I don't think they're omitting "alleged" to squeeze time for another detergent advert. SPECIFICOtalk 15:00, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Comey about role of fake news in interference
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
"US intelligence agencies said in a January report that Russian efforts to interfere in last year's American presidential election in favor of Republican Donald Trump included paid social media users, or "trolls." Part of the goal was to spread information to "denigrate" Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who lost the November election, according to the report.
"The FBI is investigating, including whether the Kremlin coordinated with Trump campaign associates."[1]
Michael9422, that's a good idea. You've got a RS, and there might be more. You might be able to create a sentence or even a paragraph. Go for it! -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:48, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
2015 in lead para
Latest comment: 7 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion
Hello. The Guardian reported this week that GCHQ found a pattern of communication between the Trump campaign and the Russians as early as 2015. I understand that dates can be contentious material, so I ask here. Also it is important not to confuse people who subscribed to the President's tweet that he was wiretapped. How about adding this sentence after what we have?
The United States Intelligence Community officially concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections.[1] In January 2017, a U.S. intelligence community assessment expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chances. Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between Moscow and the Trump campaign as early as 2015.[2]
I agree with that addition, except that "Moscow" should be changed to "Russian intelligence operatives" or "Russian spies". Otherwise, the sentence is an accurate summary of the seven reliable sources[8][9][10][11][12][13][14] that I read.- MrX 13:58, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
OK, rewritten (to avoid two "intelligence"s in one sentence): Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between Russian spies and the Trump campaign as early as 2015. -SusanLesch (talk) 14:45, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
the first source says "potential Russian spies," so we should add that qualification. Since GCHQ monitors all transatlantic telephone calls and everyone is a potential Russian spy, we should be careful not to imply anything more than the known facts. TFD (talk) 16:10, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I think "suspected" would be a better qualifier, based on the other sources.- MrX 16:25, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Thank you both. Rewritten as: Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between suspected Russian spies and the Trump campaign as early as 2015. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:30, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Changed again to The Guardian's wording. Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between suspected Russian agents and the Trump campaign as early as 2015. I'll wait until tomorrow to add this. -SusanLesch (talk) 19:43, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Sounds accurate. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:13, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Calls for impeachment
Latest comment: 7 years ago9 comments4 people in discussion
While there have been many reasons proposed for impeachment (incompetence, mental health issues, constant lying, extreme corruption, violations of Emoluments Clause, extreme nepotism, etc.) this #KremlinGate scandal and allegations of collusion are right up there at the top, so we need a section on the subject. -- BullRangifer (talk) 19:46, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
STOP! This article is enough of a WP:COATRACK of WP:RECENTWP:NEWS related to any potential accusations or criticisms of Donald Trump. Let's stay on topic please: [alleged or not] Russian interference in the presidential election. That does not include whatever some Russian guy possibly discussed with Carter Page in 2013, or whatever Flynn, Sessions and others have discussed with Russian officials AFTER Trump had been elected. — JFGtalk 21:21, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
That's a rhyme w/o a reason. SPECIFICOtalk 21:46, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Wow! Commands to "STOP!" from JFG. JFG, it's time for a break. SPECIFICO is right; You need to disengage because you're not making sense. There is nothing coatracky about this proposal. Some of the calls for impeachment are fallout from the interference in the election, whether it even happened or not. It's also discussed in RS. That's what we document here. If you can't see that right now, you need some rest.
Also, this article definitely DOES cover what you mentioned, and possibly more:
It deals with the past, present, and future of any alleged or confirmed Russian interference in the election, and that includes anyone even remotely connected, as long as it's mentioned in RS.
Whatever happened before and during the election can possibly be related to preparations (by the Russians and/or Trump's people, either alone or together) to improperly influence the election.
Whatever happened (and is happening) after the election might be considered evidence related to possible previous and ongoing collusion and/or to an ongoing coverup. It's all relevant here.
If there is any doubt about a subject's relation to the scope of the article, the solution is to widen, not narrow, the scope.
Your mass deletion here is blatant POV vandalism and a DS violation. You don't get to use your POV to remove what others deem useful content. You need to discuss it first and get a consensus to remove it. Don't make any potentially controversial edits like that. Adding material can be tricky enough, but removing it, in the manner you did, is nearly always dangerous because it assails the good faith efforts of other editors. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:19, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: Please focus on content, not editors. Any calls for impeachment of Donald Trump can be covered at the relevant article Efforts to impeach Donald Trump. I like spy stories as much as the next person, but this article is turning into a real-time sleuth novel and that's not what an encyclopedia is supposed to do. Regarding mass removals, that's part of life on wiki; lots of content is painstakingly added by people emphasizing one side or another, and gets deleted by the "other side" when it's undue. There is no good faith or POV violation occurring, it's just a normal dialogue to collectively build neutral articles. — JFGtalk 23:26, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of that article. Thanks. I'll take a look. The parts of that subject which are relevant here should be copied to their own section here, and then add a "main" link. That's how it's done. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:53, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 years ago14 comments6 people in discussion
Does not belong here. Take it to WP:AE or an admin (not me) willing to hear your case. --NeilNtalk to me 04:31, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This request for help from administrators has been answered. If you need more help or have additional questions, please reapply the {{admin help}} template, or contact the responding user(s) directly on their own user talk page.
I'm calling for a block and possible topic ban for this user. He has just made two POV mass deletions, and it's not the first time. Other times he's made mass deletions as a connected series of smaller deletions, with the same effect. He's also tried to order me around. That's not appreciated. I have replied.
Regardless of what one thinks of the deletions, the second is a violation of 1RR here. He needs consensus first to make such controversial deletions. It's an affront to the sincere efforts of others. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:46, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
I have seen this editor JFG violate DS many times and have advised him of this at least 4 times on his talk page. Unfortunately these notices have been met with denials and more violations. If DS were working as I believe they were intended to work, we would not need to be preparing detailed briefs for extended interpersonal drama at AE. Admins would be watching these articles and help keep them on track. Some Admins have been very good at this, voluntarily patrolling and helping out, but we need more eyes on these American Politics articles imo. SPECIFICOtalk 23:56, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @BullRangifer: Only my second edit is a revert; the first one is regular removal of various parts of the article contents which I deemed irrelevant or undue. A discussion with Neutrality ensued in the talk page section above where he agreed with some of my deletions and I agreed with some of his restorations and rephrasings; constructive editing all-around. Besides, my second edit cites WP:BLPVIO, and removals of BLP violations are exempt from 1RR rules. I have opened a thread at WP:BLPN to seek for mediation. You are welcome to argue your case there. — JFGtalk 00:09, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
If an admin does see this, I'd just note that one of JFG's edit summaries mentioned WP:BLP. As for supposed behavioral problems, JFG hasn't struck me as particularly problematic in any sense. There are much greater behavioral problems on this page, coming mostly from the editors who call the loudest for their opponents to be blocked. I'd say everyone should calm down and back away from the DS threats. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:04, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
But my dear, you were blocked, so whoever initiated that complaint, (I SPECIFICO have never lodged an AE complaint), could hardly be disparaged as a misbehaviorizer. SPECIFICOtalk 00:25, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Bought one of them there “misbehaviorizers”. Didn’t help my allergies one bit. (Sorry, this page is straining my sense of humor.) Objective3000 (talk) 00:41, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
This request may very well be merited based on the literal instructions of DS. But, JFG is a long-time contributor, and I wouldn’t suggest an admin-directed ruling. And, who wants to spend time at AE? I’d prefer a very large WP:trout. I just want the leftovers from the trout. Objective3000 (talk) 00:35, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Unfortunately, appears we will be there. Objective3000 (talk) 01:58, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
After numerous warnings, it seems clear that a prophylactic is required. SPECIFICOtalk 02:51, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
After numerous unfounded accusations and vague threats, it seems clear that it's time to make your case properly or forget about it. — JFGtalk 03:08, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
More bossypants. No more commands. SPECIFICOtalk 03:44, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Dis-counting
Latest comment: 7 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
The issue isn't necessarily "concluded" vs "alleged." The wording I've proposed above (which is simply the wording that BullRangifer helped draft earlier), we use both "alleged" and "concluded." We write that the subject is about "the alleged role that the Russian government played [...]," and that "the US Intelligence Community concluded that [...]" -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:38, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Humanengr, I counted the !votes in the section you linked above, above the "discussion" on that page. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:21, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
POV Dispute
Latest comment: 7 years ago88 comments14 people in discussion
I think everyone who has been involved here for a while understands that there are serious disputes about POV in this article. But just to summarize some of those disputes briefly:
First off, there have been several RfC's on the article's title which have failed to reach any consensus, with editors split on whether the title is a NPOV violation. In my judgment, the declarative nature of the title, which lacks the word "alleged" or "allegations," used by many reliable sources, violates NPOV.
Next, there is the issue of the lede, which is largely a repetition of official US government positions, which barely mentions the Russian government position, and which leaves out Wikileaks' statements entirely.
Thirdly, there is the systematic removal of experts and commentators who have expressed doubt about US government claims of Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential election.
This is just a short summary of some of the serious POV disputes here. I hope that we can work to address them. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:36, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
This is soooo last December. There is no RS reporting today that contradicts the neutral tone of the article. WP does not give "equal time" to fringe or self-serving denials of the facts as they are now known and reported. SPECIFICOtalk 21:23, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Quite the opposite: the "overwhelming consensus of 17 intelligence agencies" has been more and more put in doubt since December. That's a fact too. The narrative in reliable sources has moved away from "Russia totally stole the election" towards "Putin wanted to weaken Clinton no matter whether she would get elected", from "Trump is a Putin puppet, actively sabotaging democracy" towards "some Trump campaign people possibly colluded with Russia", and finally "Flynn spoke to the Russian ambassador during the transition and resigned, this is proof!".
Did Flynn manipulate the election with a time machine? Did Trump's failed or cancelled real estate deals in Russia give him an unfair advantage with Pennsylvania voters? Did Putin exert mind control or kompromat on the Hillary people to prevent them from campaigning in the "blue wall" states which eventually gave Trump the presidency by thin margins?
Many experts have commented that the "evidence" provided in all those reports is questionable, made up of inferences and fearmongering. Sure, RT is not exactly US-friendly, so what? Is CNN accused of treason in Russia for not being exactly Russia-friendly?
Three separate investigations are ongoing, including the one by the FBI since July, and none of them found any solid evidence of anything; they keep chewing on the same allegations first raised in June 2016 when it was revealed the DNC got hacked. Nobody knows who hacked them; even the intelligence community witnesses admit that they don't have proof beyond "similarities" with "typical" Russian means of action.
Meanwhile, Wikileaks has shown how the CIA can easily spoof Russian, Chinese or Korean attacks, and I'm sure the Russians or the Chinese can also conduct their cyberespionage without leaving blatant traces. Those are also "facts known and reported", it's a bit too easy to just call them fringe. However, I have given up on this article; pardon my rant and enjoy your tunnel vision… — JFGtalk 23:09, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
"the "overwhelming consensus of 17 intelligence agencies" has been more and more put in doubt since December. " - Huh? Wait, hold, on... HUH? No, no it hasn't. Are you saying that now these intelligence agencies are saying that Russia DIDN'T hack the DNC? Because if that's your claim, I want to see those sources. You seem to be saying that because this whole thing has blown up with all kinds of OTHER shady stuff coming out the original, fairly mild claim "Russia interfered", is no longer valid. That's ass backwards buddy.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:35, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Don't put words in my mouth (or don't hack my keyboard!): I'm not claiming that IC agencies have changed their stance, I'm claiming that many credible sources have put several elements of their inferences in doubt, with inferences of their own that are at least as plausible. After each crescendo report comes out, a litany of people pick it apart and see nothing new, nothing substantial. The strongest claim I've seen from the IC reports is "RT is a propaganda arm of the Kremlin"; well duh, like people need a lecture on disinformation by the CIA to understand this basic reality? And the only responses have been "we have proof but we can't show it" or "how dare anyone question the brave and infallible US Intelligence Community" or "look, facts are here, why deny the obvious" (a favorite line of John McCain). Month after month after month of weaseling and harping on the Trump / Russia connection. Where's the beef? Obviously, it's not for us lowly Wikipedians to judge who's right, but IT IS OUR JOB to depict a fair balance of the various theories and viewpoints that have been put forward by credible people (and before you yell fringe, I'm not referring to nutjobs here). — JFGtalk 22:25, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Seeing as how I quoted you directly, it's sort of... pointless for you to claim that I am "putting words in your mouth", no? And that's some interesting original research but actually this article right here, and the dozens of reliable sources within it are a pretty clear proof that it's just not true that, ahem, let me quote you again "The strongest claim" IS THAT "RT is a propaganda arm of the Kremlin". I mean, come on! At the very least admit that the hacking of the DNC - which, again, one more time, let me repeat, even the Trump team acknowledges was done by Russia - is a "stronger claim". Or that hackers accessed voter registration rolls. Or that troll accounts specifically targeted certain demographics in certain states to tip the election. Or that several Trump associates had meetings with Russian intelligence agents or officials (and a few of them lied about it). I mean there stuff coming out every few days - Erik Prince setting up meetings came out today. Or Carter Page being recruited by Russian intelligence. Sorry. This "oh it's only RT" is just obfuscation.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:54, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
This talk page is about what's actually in the article and what mainstream RS say. It's not about whatever nonsense is on American cable tv or clickbait sites from day to day. The OR "rant" is not useful for editors here. I congratulate you on having decided to move on. SPECIFICOtalk 23:24, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Nothing I wrote here is OR (except the rhetorical questions), but you don't like the sources. When Clapper says something that goes your way, it must be quoted in full and prominently displayed in the lead; when he says something that goes the opposite way, it's fringe, undue and buried in a subsection. We've been through these conversations so many times that I have just about given up bringing a modicum of balance to this trainwreck of an article. So allow me to congratulate you in turn: your persistence has paid off. Let me know when is your birthday and I'll send you a "Nevertheless, she persisted" t-shirt. — JFGtalk 23:38, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG:@SPECIFICO: Let's keep this on subject. I think we can all acknowledge that there's a serious dispute on this page about POV. I'd like to discuss how to address it.
I'll go first: the lede needs more balance. Right now, it focuses almost solely on statements made by US government officials. For greater balance, it needs more detail on the Russian response - the short sentence there isn't enough. Additionally, it should include the statement made by Assange about the leaks not coming from Russia, since he's a central figure in this subject, and his statement received widespread coverage. All in all, the lede should also be much shorter. The details can be left to the body of the text. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:00, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
The lede is fine. "Balance" appears to be an excuse for "let me add some undue weight". Yes, Russia denied it. It's already there. You want eight different ways of saying they denied it? Why? Lede is fine.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:36, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Here is the shortened and (in my modest opinion) neutral lead section that I wrote from scratch as an exercise a few weeks ago, when discussing the long-term perspective of this article:
Following the publication of DNC internal communications by WikiLeaks in June and October 2016, several US intelligence agencies affirmed that Russia had attempted to intervene in the presidential election, indicating a preference for candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. In retaliation, President Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and expanded sanctions to individuals linked with the Russian secret service. Russia has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Trump dismissed the allegations of Russian meddling as partisan fodder. Upon taking office he vowed to work with Russia constructively while maintaining a strong defense of American interests. Accusations of collusion between Trump campaign members and Russian officials are under investigation by the Senate and House intelligence committees. Cybersecurity experts are divided about the relevance of technical elements linking the DNC intrusions to Russian hacker groups. Some intelligence officials are wary that President Trump may not trust their reports at face value. The controversy has sparked intense media interest and scrutiny of all parties involved.
Feel free to tweak and get ready for prime time. Each sentence can be easily sourced, although I believe that a lead section without sources is easier to read; there are plenty enough sources in the article body. We should add FBI to the "ongoing investigations" phrase now that it has been revealed. — JFGtalk 00:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Pardon, but I’m having difficulty understanding your point, and your complaints seem too general for response. As for statements by Assange, some mention may be acceptable. But, he is hardly a reliable source for anything. I don’t see how we can add more on the Russian response since it’s basically: It didn’t happen. The lead (lede) is likely too long. But, it’s a complex subject. (Note: I had an edit conflict with JFG and will wait for your response before….) Objective3000 (talk) 00:28, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
@Objective3000:"But, he is hardly a reliable source for anything." A lot of editors here misunderstand what WP:RS means. It does not mean that we cannot quote people who may have an agenda. It simply means that anything the article states has to be well sourced. The fact that Assange said Russia is not the source for the leaks is documented by many reliable sources, so there's absolutely no WP:RS problem with quoting Assange. The only question, then, is whether Assange's statement is undue, and I can't see how it could possibly be argued that it is. His statement was covered widely by the press, and as the head of Wikileaks, he's a central figure in the story. The fact that his statement isn't covered in the lede is a major POV problem. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:22, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
@Objective3000: You say of Assange: he is hardly a reliable source for anything. He is by definition a RS for his own positions, and those have been pretty consistent all along. And I may add that irrespective of their political opinions, Wikileaks is a pretty damn reliable source for whatever they leak: none of the documents released over the last 10 years have been proven false or doctored; they have been consistently authentic and embarrassing to whoever they were stolen from, and that's the whole point. As I wrote in the RfC, it doesn't matter what WP editors think about Assange's credibility, but as it happens, Assange and WikiLeaks have a pretty long track record of publishing leaked documents that were proven to be authentic and truthful, irrespective of the political consequences involved: Cablegate, Iraq War Logs, Stratfor emails, TPP draft, etc. Uncomfortable? Certainly. Partisan? Probably. Credible? Definitely. — JFGtalk 10:06, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
PS: Not to redo the RfC here (I have requested a closer), but please note that in my short lead proposal I do not include Assange, however in the current super-long lead, his statements would deserve a few words. — JFGtalk 05:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
none of the documents released over the last 10 years have been proven false or doctored An absurd statement, because to "prove" the veracity of a stolen document requires you to steal the same yourself and compare. It does matter what we think about Assange's credibility, because we have discretion as to whether mentioning him is WP:UNDUE or not. Further, the bulk of reliable sources don't seem to be finding him that credible, at least compared with the attention he gets compared to the IC/USG sources. Maybe that's the reason some think this article is unfair? Take that up with the sources! Geogene (talk) 11:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Not necessarily. In espionage matters, the lack of blanket denials often proves the authenticity of the documents. They can be cross-checked and corroborated with other sources or through the lens of history, as happened with the diplomatic cables. The Iraq war logs were acknowledged as authentic raw data and the leaker was jailed as a traitor for threatening the security of military personnel, which wouldn't be an issue if the documents were fake. None of the Snowden disclosures has been proven wrong or doctored, in fact most of what has been published was later verified on the ground. And in some cases even stolen documents can be proven authentic without "stealing them yourself", e.g. Podesta emails were proven authentic by Google's own DKIMcryptographic signatures, which can't be forged if any bit of the original message is changed. — JFGtalk 23:21, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
The RFC on the Assange comments was opened less than a month ago. You are all proposing things that have been proposed before and haven't attracted consensus.--216.12.10.118 (talk) 00:44, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
You added the templates and then "POV dispute" to the Talk page. Shouldn't you have gone to the Talk page first and waited for the outcome of the alleged POV dispute discussion? Aside from having been over this over and over again, moving of the page having been endorsed, ... Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 07:29, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
The POV dispute tags merely reflect the fact that there is a dispute over NPOV on this page. The tag is supposed to be added when such a dispute exists, while the discussion over POV is ongoing. I think everyone can agree that there is a dispute over POV here. As far as POV goes, this is probably one of the most heavily disputed pages on Wikipedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
It's trivially easy to generate artificial "disputes" on the talk page by engaging in a lot of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Which is what you're doing here. That is why the POV tag needs to be substantiated - which means you either show everyone some sources or you leave it alone.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:41, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
The dispute isn't artificial. Just look through the talk page and the archives, and there's no doubt that many editors feel this article is strongly biased. If the POV dispute tag is inappropriate on this page, then there's no page on Wikipedia on which it's appropriate. This is probably one of the most contentious articles on the whole project. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Considering that you guys are even questioning whether reliable sources actually say that Russia interfered in the election (of course they freakin' do!) when even the Trump administration concedes as much... yeah, the dispute is artificial. Like I said, it's time to drop the stick and step away from the dead parrot.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:08, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
I presented a random sampling of sources a while back, and that sampling showed that most sources use some variation on "alleged," "allegations," or "sources claim." You like to cite WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, which describes your reaction to my findings pretty well. In any case, I think it's obvious there's a POV dispute here, both over content and the title, which makes your removal of the POV tags inappropriate. Please restore them. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:08, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Uno: "random" is nonsense. You drew them blindfolded out of a hat? Dos: You need to look at recent RS text that reflects current mainstream presentation unless you're editing the wayback machine. Tres: "sources claim" ?? 🐵. SPECIFICOtalk
"Random" as in not cherry-picked. They were the first hits on a Google search. I told you, at the time, what search term I used. I also presented the top hits from two major foreign-language newspapers: Le Monde and the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The results showed that most reliable sources were not presenting "Russian interference" as a fact. They described it as an allegation/claim made by American officials.
But just to reiterate: there is a POV dispute here. That means the tags have to go back. After that, we can discuss individual POV problems in the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:44, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
If you're not prepared to respond to the statements of your fellow editors here, discussion is pointless. WP doesn't do "random" google that for starters. SPECIFICOtalk 11:16, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
POV reflects that of the bulk of reliable sources. Some may not like that they give the intelligence community/non-WH US government officials a lot of credibility, and Assange relatively little, but this is not the forum for that. We could remove him completely. Geogene (talk) 11:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
We've been over this many, many times. Most reliable sources refer to "allegations of" or "alleged" Russian interference in the US Presidential election. This article states the claims of US intelligence agencies much more definitively than most reliable sources do. As for Assange, what he said received very broad coverage, yet is hardly mentioned in this article at all. Very broadly, almost every critical opinion or assessment has been removed from the article. Finally, looking at the lede, all but 12 words of it discuss US government positions on the subject. There's a massive slant in this article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:14, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, yes we have been over this, so why are still you doing the whole WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT thing? Peppering the article with "alleged" is a violation of... well, WP:ALLEGED and it's a clear attempt to weasel this. For fuck's sake, even Trump administration now admits that Russia interfered. You really need to back away from this dead horse.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
And oh yeah, "all but 12 words of it discuss"... what reliable sources say. The fact you want to slap in some of your own personal OR isn't here nor there.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:43, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
I would agree, broadly, that this article does a very poor job of relaying uncertainty by mainstream media and commentators over allegations of Russian hacking. One egregious POV violation, and an example of very poor writing, is the first paragraph: simple a very long quote of a report by US intelligence agencies. This would be absurd for an article on allegations from any other country. -Darouet (talk) 16:04, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
What uncertainty??? Like I said. Even the Trump administration agrees that Russia intervened.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
There are still plenty of news agencies that routinely refer to this as "alleged Russian interference," or possible Russian hacking." -Darouet (talk) 12:59, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I think (and just to be clear: I don't really agree with this; I just want to get editors on the same page) Darouet is suggesting it's a POV problem from a country perspective (the United States says Russia intervened; Russia says they did not ... we spend two paragraphs talking about the U.S. says before, at the end of the third paragraph, mentioning that Russia denies the claim), which is why mentioning that the Trump administration concurs isn't satisfying him.
One note: the Assange issue is closed. There was just an RFC on this. It's not really appropriate to say "Well I don't like the RFC outcome ... so there's still a POV dispute tag!" --216.12.10.118 (talk) 00:45, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
The POV dispute goes far beyond just the placement of the Russian response or the Assange statement, although those are, of course, part of the POV dispute (on a side note, the fact that so many editors explicitly argued that Assange's statement shouldn't be included because it would undermine claims made by US intelligence points to the glaring problem here - highly politicized editing). I listed some of the elements of the dispute at the top of this section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:08, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
But of course, that view would be incorrect, which is why we operate on consensus and don't need to spend undue effort on bringing up the rear. The tag is garbage, but it apparently brings great solace to comrades in a time of grief. SPECIFICOtalk 00:56, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
I do not see any serious POV problems on the page and do not see them convincingly explained above. Here is what people who complain about POV are trying to include on the page. But let's check the "criticism" source they are quoting. It actually tells in the end (a kind of conclusion) the following: "In its report last June attributing the Democratic hacks, CrowdStrike said it was long familiar with the methods used by Fancy Bear and another group with ties to Russian intelligence nicknamed Cozy Bear. Soon after, U.S. cybersecurity firms Fidelis and Mandiant endorsed CrowdStrike’s conclusions. The FBI and Homeland Security report reached the same conclusion about the two groups. Still, some cybersecurity experts are skeptical ...". This page tells basically the same. My very best wishes (talk) 02:37, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
You may not see any serious POV problems, but editors here do, and have raised these issues on the talk page over the past few months. With the talk page and archives, I don't see how you can possibly claim that the neutrality of this article is not disputed.
The dispute might not exist if you and several other editors had been more amenable to compromise with editors who don't share your particular viewpoint, but you've molded the article into a hyper-partisan form. The lede is essentially a long recapitulation of US government claims, and throughout the article, almost every commentary that at all questions the views expressed by US intelligence has been removed.
But regardless, the neutrality of the article (and its title) is disputed. That's something that you have to admit. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:43, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
No. I checked instruction and have to admit that #2 applies here: "It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given.". That's why I think the tag was correctly removed by someone. My very best wishes (talk) 05:26, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
It cannot possibly be unclear to you what the neutrality issue is. I gave a bullet point of the top issues above, and several other editors raised additional issues. The way that you and Marek are dismissing the existence of a dispute over neutrality is pretty insulting to all the editors here who have raised issues with the POV of the article. You can't simply pretend we're not raising issues. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:31, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
Sorry to disagree. Your point #1. No, there were RfC with definite conclusion, such as this. Having RfC with any outcomes does not prove the existence of POV problems on the page. Your point #2. No, the denial by Russia was mentioned in the lead. Yes, the lead can be made shorter, but this is hardly a POV problem. #3. No, the views by Russian government and Assange are prominently present in their own sections: [15], [16]. I do not see any obvious POV problems. My very best wishes (talk) 14:16, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
You can't just run around in circles with fingers in your ears yelling "it's disputed! it's disputed! it's disputed!" and then tag shame the article. This has been discussed ad nauseum. You don't have consensus. The NPOV tag is not a "I didn't get my way cuz stupid consensus was against me" tag. Tag shaming an article with a spurious NPOV tag is not a consolation prize you get when you've failed to achieve consensus for your edits.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:13, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
The tag indicates that the neutrality of the article is disputed. Just read through the talk page above, and look through the archives. How can you seriously claim that the article's neutrality is not disputed? This isn't "shaming" the article. It's noting the fact that the article's neutrality is heavily disputed by a large number of editors. It's pretty disrespectful to all of us who have been editing here, and who dispute the neutrality of the article, to claim that there's no dispute. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, when you're saying things like "go through the archives," you're ignoring that some of the things you're taking issue with have been resolved (either by RFCs or other means). For example, that the lede contains only a brief mention of Russia is consistent with the closing statements at Talk:Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections/Archive_6#RfC:_Denial_by_Russian_officials. If there's an RFC and your proposal is rejected, you don't get to keep saying "DISPUTE! DISPUTE! DISPUTE!" --216.12.10.118 (talk) 12:40, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
The result of the various RfCs was that editors are strongly divided on whether the article is neutral. In other words, the neutrality of the article is disputed. I don't have to yell "DISPUTE!" Just read above, and then tell me there isn't a dispute. If this page isn't disputed, then we should just do away with the POV tag altogether on Wikipedia, because there are few pages whose neutrality is more contentious than that of this page. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:18, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
It isn’t likely that the consensus wording in this article, or any of the articles relating to recent politics, will ever satisfy everyone. That is, someone will always “dispute” the article on POV grounds. That, in itself, is not grounds for a POV tag. Otherwise, WP would be littered with tags and they would not serve their purpose of starting discussion. Objective3000 (talk) 12:55, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
It's not just that we haven't satisfied everyone. It's that nearly half of the active editors here think this article egregiously violates WP:NPOV. "Otherwise, WP would be littered with tags and they would not serve their purpose of starting discussion." On the entire project, I don't think there are many pages whose neutrality is more heavily disputed than that of this article. If the POV tag doesn't apply here, we should just eliminate the tag altogether from Wikipedia. You keep talking as if this is just my quibbling with the article. Just look above, and you'll see that there are many editors who have been arguing for months that this article has extremely serious WP:NPOV problems, and that those concerns have been basically run over roughshod by another group of editors. An ounce of respect for all the editors who have voiced opposition to the way the article has been formulated would require you to at least acknowledge that there is a dispute. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:23, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
If you wish to change consensus, or claim consensus doesn’t exist, you are going to have to change your tact. It isn’t working. Just some practical advice. Objective3000 (talk) 00:01, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the practical advice. If it were genuine, I would take it more seriously, but you're playing a pretty transparent game here. Almost every single edit I've made to this article has been reverted. The justifications for the reverts change, and the rationales flip 180 degrees when convenient, with the only consistency being that any material that is at all critical of US government claims is removed, and the article is stuffed with ever more poorly written bloat.
The neutrality of this article is heavily disputed, not just by me, but by somewhere around half of the editors who have been active here. If you were actually willing to engage with us on the neutrality issues, I would consider your personal advice (vague as it was - I didn't actually see any advice, other than that I should make an unspecified change in "tact"). But your refusal to acknowledge even that there is a neutrality dispute doesn't give me much hope that you'd ever be willing to give any consideration to the objections raised by numerous editors here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:37, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
For the record, I have no time to engage further but I endorse Thucydides411's assertion that this article is one of the most highly disputed in all Wikipedia. When stating that simple fact is called "tag-shaming", all hope for neutrality is lost. The state of this article is shameful indeed. I would advocate a clean start per WP:TNT. The situation and the scandal(s) can probably be summarized in a clean and short article under 10 kB of prose, unfortunately everybody here wants to add their preferred WP:NEWS material and conspiracy bloat (I'm talking about both "sides"). Hopeless. — JFGtalk 09:53, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
I don’t know what “transparent game” I’m playing as I’ve made zero edits or reverts to this article. I don’t think discussion is going to be useful without assuming good faith. As I said, your tact isn’t working. Objective3000 (talk) 11:12, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm guessing there's an article in SD Zeitstuff that says 2/17 = "nearly half?" SPECIFICOtalk 00:39, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: Dear SPECIFICO, from which section are you counting 2/17? Humanengr (talk) 05:52, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
The article indicates the U.S. has ‘concluded' that Russia interfered with U.S. elections. Russia has denied that (thought that denial is buried deep in the article). Of the 222 cites, 3 are from Russia. Is that not biased? Humanengr (talk) 17:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
As the Hack occurred in the USA no.Slatersteven (talk) 17:52, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
So RS's are determined by where the hack occurred?? Where is that in the policies? If an attack occurred on a spacecraft in near-earth orbit, would there be no sources? Humanengr (talk) 18:00, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
No, it means that it is going to get a lot of coverage in the USA, and this is the English language Wiki so people will tend to use English language sources. It is not a bias on the part of Wikipedia or it's edds, it is availability. Now what do you think needs a Russian source?Slatersteven (talk) 18:12, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
So your first reason ("As the Hack occurred in the USA") failed. The next reason is false on its face. "this is the English language Wiki so people will tend to use English language sources". That's 'bias'. You: "It is not a bias on the part of Wikipedia or it's edds, it is availability." Not true. Does it not strike you as odd that Russia Today gets only unfavorable mention? Humanengr (talk) 18:28, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
The "nationality" of a source is completely irrelevant. All that matters is whether a source is reliable or not.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:29, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
So, e.g., Russia Today is not reliable? Humanengr (talk) 18:33, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
That's correct. A different Russian source may be reliable. Just like there's plenty of American sources which are not reliable.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:42, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
For my edification, on what basis is RT not reliable? Humanengr (talk) 18:52, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Per guidelines laid out at WP:RS, specifically the lack of "reputation for fact checking and accuracy". You can also look through the archives of WP:RSN to read past discussions. RT may be reliable for simple non controversial statements or official statements from Russian (and other officials). Though in that case, why not just find a better source, if it's non controversial? Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:06, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
@Volunteer Marek: iiuc, "reputation for fact checking and accuracy" as assessed by US RS -- correct? Humanengr (talk) 20:44, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Incorrect. And once you start it with the loaded leading questions further discussion is sort of pointless since you've obviously ditched good faith.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Are you referring to this: "Of the 222 cites, 3 are from Russia. Is that not biased?" If so, how is that 'loaded'? Humanengr (talk) 23:53, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
No, I am referring to: "as assessed by US RS -- correct?"Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:00, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Thx; how is that loaded? Were any of the RS not from the US (or UK)? Humanengr (talk) 00:06, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: Perhaps I missed it, but were any of the sources used to 'flunk' RT Russian sources? Humanengr (talk) 23:44, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
@Volunteer Marek: re: "A different Russian source may be reliable." So some Russian sources might have been missed? Humanengr (talk) 23:56, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Dear Human. You are repeatedly asking leading questions with embedded misrepresentations of the persons to whom you address them. This is not constructive. Please reflect and desist. Others will speak for themselves, and those who disagree with you are not apt to jump through hoops no matter how eagerly you hold them. SPECIFICOtalk 01:28, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Err, the fact it occurred in the USA means that US sources will cover it most, that is not admitting a failure, that is explaining why US sources are mostly used.Slatersteven (talk) 10:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Specific objections
This is getting rather long, rambling and unspecific.
If there is a problem with using predominantly US (or English) sources can we have some examples of RS here and what they support in the text?Slatersteven (talk) 10:16, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Thx for asking. It’s a combination of reframing by RS and further reframing by editors.
The 1st sentence says “The United States Intelligence Community has officially concluded that …”. That sentence cites an article headlined "U.S. government officially accuses …” which is a strengthening (though understandable by itself) of the 10/7/2016 DNI report it cites which states “The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident …”.
But the title of the article takes it a step further and presents “Russian interference” as fact when, in fact, it has not been established ‘as fact’.
The 2nd sentence says "expressed 'high confidence’” directly citing the 1/6/2017 DNI report. The title is similarly not justified by this cite or any other.
Beyond that, the entire intro speaks in terms of investigations. It is a fact that there are investigations. And that fact should be reflected in the title. Humanengr (talk) 04:14, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Resolution
There seems to be a slow edit war over these tags. Based on the comments above, there seems to be minimal support for the OP's assertion that the article reflects a specific POV not supported by the majority of sources in the article itself. If the issue is Assange, that was handled by the RfC. From my reading, the article adheres to RfC by accurately reflecting the reliable sources and explaining any "sides" that exist with due weight. EvergreenFir(talk) 20:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@EvergreenFir: I think that part of the issue that's come up again and again at this article and article talk, over the long term, is the conflation of "DUE WEIGHT" with "NO WEIGHT." I hope to make a longer post about this in a number of days (today if I can). In brief however, the relative certainty with which this article treats allegations that rely almost wholly upon the say-so of American intelligence agencies depends on excluding commentary from reliable sources that is skeptical of those allegations. Multiple RfCs have shown that while a majority of editors tend to vote to exclude skepticism, a great many editors have stated that the article should include more skepticism. That's not surprising: the RfC votes have tended to replicate the views of the American public generally, and the way in which media around this world (even if we ignore Russian media) have reported on skepticism. Unfortunately, almost none of this has made its way into the article. And that is theoretically possible on Wikipedia, even if a slim majority wants to exclude skepticism, and the editing (and general political) environment is polarized. It really doesn't need to be this way and it shouldn't. -Darouet (talk) 13:16, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
@Darouet: The issue of due weight/no weight is certainly important and I understand what you mean with regard to this article. The other problem, from what I gather here, is that the skepticism is from individuals more than news organizations (correct me if I am mistaken), and then the issue of notable opinions comes into play. I don't have an answer for that, and it might be that NPOVN can help resolve that. But as for the {{POV}}, it seems to me that they should stay off the article for now. EvergreenFir(talk) 14:30, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree. Also, there is no justification for NPOV tags when there are active talk page discussions and recently closed discussions about the article and title NPOV.- MrX 20:25, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Based on the above, there are many editors who think this article reflects a specific POV. @EvergreenFir: It's highly insulting to all of us editors who have argued that this article is non-neutral to pretend we don't exist. Just look at the talk page above. I see a slight majority supporting the article as-is, but a significant minority believing that it's highly skewed. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@Thucydides411: NOTAVOTE aside, I see at least 8 editors (myself included) that say there's no POV issue. You and JFG say there is one. Humanengr had questions about sources. That's not a slight majority. This all after the RfC was concluded. If you have issues with it, perhaps WP:NPOVN would be the best place. EvergreenFir(talk) 21:21, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
I guess we need an RfC to decide whether the article neutrality is disputed. Or not. Tagging is useful but how do we work together towards neutrality when one group of "guardians" keeps insisting that there is no neutrality problem because only the "mainstream view" counts (and then cherry-picks what is mainstream enough)? — JFGtalk 21:24, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@EvergreenFir: Just to add to this, your edit summary here is misleading. The POV section of this talk page does not indicate a "general consensus" that the POV tags are unwarranted. You can't have honestly read through the back-and-forth between editors on both sides of the issue and come to the conclusion that there's "general consensus." Again, you're pretending that editors like myself, JFG, Humanengr and Darouet (not to mention all the editors who have previously argued that the article is non-neutral, but have given up editing here) simply do not exist, and simply skipping over our objections. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:26, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@EvergreenFir: If you read through it, then you should have characterized it accurately. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:30, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@Thucydides411: I've not been a part of this discussion and have no involvement here. But your "my way is the only correct way" attitude is apparent from the discuss above and your comments to me. They are not remotely helpful in resolving this, or any issue. This is not a battleground or a place to wright great wrongs, as you know. Tone down the polemics please. EvergreenFir(talk) 21:34, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@EvergreenFir: I'm actually simply asking you to acknowledge the existence of a dispute. From my perspective (and probably that of many editors who think this article has serious NPOV problems), consistent reversion of our edits to the content of the article, dismissal of our POV concerns, and then dismissal of the idea that there even is a POV dispute looks a lot like "my way is the only correct way."
When you read through a discussion in which several editors express the opinion that the article has POV problems, and then write that there is "general consensus" that there are no POV problems, that looks a lot like "my way or the highway." I'd just like you (and other editors involved here) to recognize that there is a dispute here, and not to act as if the dispute does not exist. There's been next to no "give-and-take" here. When one side takes a maximalist view (e.g., systematically removing reference to any intelligence analyst or cybersecurity expert who has expressed doubt about the US government's case), it's very difficult for that give-and-take to exist. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:48, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
I think we're at the point where Arbcom expected one of our Admins to step in and issue another block to the recidivist disruptive editor. The first one didn't seem to do the trick, and nobody has any appetite for a long AE discussion. SPECIFICOtalk 21:39, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
ANI Complaint
Latest comment: 7 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
FYI, an ANI complaint related to this article has been filed at [17]Objective3000 (talk) 12:13, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Now closed as a content dispute. Softlavender (talk) 12:29, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Rather a pity to close it before the boomerang. Are you sure that was wise? SPECIFICOtalk 12:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
I was going to suggest no boom, just that they be warned not to waste ANI time with content disputes. But, it was closed so fast, I didn’t have time to respond. Objective3000 (talk) 12:40, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Agree ANI was probably the wrong venue (currently), but when people are insisting content like this simply has to be here, while at the same time repeatedly removing content like this, there's obviously a problem. The Prince story really is speculation, at least as to the reason for the meeting and the connection to the Trump campaign, based on newspaper innuendo; Carr is a well-known IT expert offering their assessment, whose opinion is being directly cited and attributed. Funnily enough of course the former story chimes with one side's view of the issue, while the latter does not. N-HHtalk/edits 12:44, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
That's why the cyber warfare hasn't slowed down at all. The Russian military has been very open and described their new warfare doctrine as 3/4 cyber and 1/4 conventional, with the cyber warfare as a constant and non-stop feature. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:52, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
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How about you offer something constructive rather than acting as Ye Olde Guardian Of Alleged Consensus? — JFG talk 20:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
