Talk:Sid Ahmed Ghlam case

What is this article about?

What is this article about? The article should be about the murder, Sid Ahmed Ghlam, being the accused, until such time as he is tried, there is no such thing as the 'Sid Ahmed Ghlam case' it is possibly a BLP violation to even name it thus and the end result is an absurd number of 'allegedlies'. Or alternately about Sid Ahmed Ghlam, the perpetrator, who is accused of etc. Pincrete (talk) 17:35, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I took the name from the French version of the article, but feel free to rename it into something more appropriate, though the case is about more than the death of Aurélie Châtelain, so I don't think that's a good alternative. The "Villejuif case" maybe is better. I understand some of your concerns and objections. I had started written a draft for an article on the subject some time ago, but then put it aside to rather wait for the trial to start, at which point things would be clearer. However, I saw someone make a redlink to this story in the Normandie case, and then I found my old draft and put it up right away to prevent other from start working with the things I had already done. But the article wasn't so well prepared as I normally would have done before publishing it. There is a clear link between this case and the Normandie case in that information found in Sid Ahmed Ghlam's communication with caused concern for church attacks from ISIS and led to enhanced security for church buildings, first immediately and then again during Christmas 2015. The communication also revealed a church "hit list" from ISIS, which included the targeted church in Normandie, so this case has become even more notable after the Normandie attack. Even if Ghlam is ultimately acquitted, there will still be a case that is notable for Wikipedia. Iselilja (talk) 18:18, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for reply, looking more closely, I can see 'the murdered' would be inapt as a title. I'm not sure there is any 'link' between the incidents, except Church attacks of course. Nowhere makes it clear that 'St Etienne' WAS on Ghlam's list, only more famous churches, and it would be an extraordinary coincidence that the perpetrator lived so close. Anyhow, it would be WP:OR, for us to deduce a link. I'm not sure now about the article name. I imagine that more experienced editors will be looking at the article as a result of 'St. Etienne' and perhaps somebody will have a better idea than me. Pincrete (talk) 18:39, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Having read the lead of Iselilja's link I agree that there is a link and I disagree with Pincrete's questioning of the source. Le Figaro is generally reliable. A Thousand Words (talk) 06:06, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

What was disputed (at that time) was mainly whether Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray - the Normandy church where an elderly priest was murdered - was on a 'hit list' found on Ghlam, as claimed by several news orgs at the time - and which all appeared to be quoting a Daily Express story, which itself was very equivocal as to where the info came from (anon sources 'close to the investigation'). No evidence of the Normandy church being on such a list has surfaced since. The dispute was amicably resolved more than 4 years ago! Pincrete (talk) 13:36, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

A little help for TompaDompa

TompaDompa you may wish to enter prison perpétuité avec sûreté into a search engine per WP:SOFIXIT. A Thousand Words (talk) 06:23, 10 November 2020 (UTC) It is also unclear why Pincrete and TompaDompa constantly keep questioning the trial section at the bottom of the article, when there are also problems with the lead section. A Thousand Words (talk) 06:33, 10 November 2020 (UTC) (stricken A Thousand Words (talk) 07:01, 10 November 2020 (UTC))

Or forget it, I'll do the heavy lifting in the article myself. Don't want this to be yet another instance where hours are wasted in the talk page instead of working on the article itself. A Thousand Words (talk) 07:01, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Fixing the body, before the lead, is the correct way round. The lead is nothing more than a summary of the article body. Pincrete (talk) 13:49, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Pincrete hasn't been "fixing" the article body though, just added a lot of questioning and templates. A Thousand Words (talk) 18:31, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Per the template, the lead doesn't accurately summarize the event. If you think it does, you haven't read the sources. A Thousand Words (talk) 00:24, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I did in fact do that, but I'm not all that comfortable with translating legal terminology I'm not familiar with based on what Google says. English-language sources variously translate it as "security sentence", "safety sentence", "security period", and "safety period". My guess would be that it has something to do with eligibility for parole, but of course guessing isn't good enough. I also wasn't entirely sure that this was the part of the source it referred to, as it initially said 25 years rather than 22 years as in the source. Removing it altogether, as you eventually did, was a perfectly cromulent solution and we could have saved a lot of time and effort if this sentence had been written properly from the get-go.

I'm not averse to doing heavy lifting (as you put it) per se – see for instance my complete overhaul of 2001 bomb plot in Europe a while back. Most of that work was done using the sources that were already on the article, however. That article was bad not because of a lack of sources, but because the sources were used poorly and it was written poorly (i.e. the prose did not achieve professional standards of writing). In other words, it mainly needed copyediting, not additional sources. Of course, if it had been written properly to begin with, that would've saved a lot of effort since fixing a broken article is way more difficult than constructing a proper one from the start. Likewise, this article—Sid Ahmed Ghlam case—doesn't have a lack-of-sources problem, but a quality-of-writing problem. This what Pincrete and I have both been trying to fix.

With regards to our other disagreements about this article: When other editors raise WP:NPOV concerns, strive to address whether the material is neutral rather than chalking it up to personal preference and dismissing the concerns without addressing them – if you think the material is neutral, make an argument to that effect. TompaDompa (talk) 13:56, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

A Thousand Words, to the best of my knowledge and memory, I have added NO templates to this article. Questioning, in order to accurately - and in terms of clear grammatical English - reflect what sources ACTUALLY support is what we do I thought. Do you have some specific complaint about any of my edits here? Pincrete (talk) 14:17, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Repeated attempts at sucking me into endless talk page discussions isn't going to work anymore. A Thousand Words (talk) 14:53, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I merely wanted to know why you made accusations on talk about others which you seemingly don't care whether they are false or not. It's fairly spineless IMO. I'm afraid it mirrors your edits and careless use of sources. Apology accepted! Pincrete (talk) 15:37, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Very well, you are not obligated to participate in the talk page discussion; Wikipedia is of course WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. If you're not going to engage in discussing it I will, however, remove the non-neutral content. I have been extremely patient with you; you have repeatedly restored material about a living person that other editors have raised WP:NPOV concerns about without even attempting to address those concerns, opting instead to attribute their concerns to personal preference. Per WP:BLP, To ensure that material about living people is written neutrally to a high standard, and based on high-quality reliable sources, the burden of proof is on those who wish to retain, restore, or undelete the disputed material. When material about living persons has been deleted on good-faith BLP objections, any editor wishing to add, restore, or undelete it must ensure it complies with Wikipedia's content policies. If it is to be restored without significant change, consensus must be obtained first. TompaDompa (talk) 16:37, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

The convict's version of events is inherently unreliable

Per this deletion, the convict's version of events is completely unreliable and was therefore deleted again. A Thousand Words (talk) 09:48, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Converserly, completely reliable information was somehow deleted due to consensus. Consensus isn't really meant to be used to delete reliable information. A Thousand Words (talk) 09:54, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I couldn't be bothered to revert your recent deletion as it didn't seem remotely important whether 'his story' was there or not, partly because it received so litle coverage and wasn't in anyway an 'ongoing story' - BUT the idea that an accused person (or a convicted person) saying "I didn't do it it was ZXY" is non-neutral is simply comic. As is the idea that he loses the right to say it once he has been found guilty by a court. What state exists where people are not allowed to continue to claim innocence, during or even after serving their sentence? In his case 'his story' appears to be so feeble, that it is unsurprising that it was rejected. He was obliged to enter a plea and 'his story' to the court. However, his lack of condolences pre-supposes that he SHOULD have offered condolences and must be callous/cruel or guilty if he doesn't. Why would a person who says he is innocent offer condolences? What for? What else DIDN"T he say? Why does the source think that he should have done and what opportunity existed within the trial for him to do so? I have never offered my condolences to the Kennedy family for JFK's assassination nor apologised to the Irish population for the great potato famine! Cruel me!

Upon reflection, I would say that although the 'condolences' comment is 'loaded' and thus NPOV, more than anything it's trivia. Repeating every passing comment from every news source is not obligatory. A source is a necessary, but not a sufficient reason for inclusion. Why is the absence of condolences relevant to anything? Pincrete (talk) 12:05, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

nb The heading and content of this section was changed retrospectively

1Kwords, I'm not going to reinstate a fairly trivial claim from Ghlam, but the idea that him claiming that "someone else did it" is inherently either NPOV or unreliable (because he was found guilty?) is frankly ludicrous, as is the claim that there is anything comparable between that and the 'no condolences' text. All you have achieved is leaving a permanent record of how WP:POINTy your editing is. Have a nice day! Pincrete (talk) 16:11, 6 July 2021 (UTC)