Talk:Narco News

secret concerns about "overall fairness"

A wikipedian contacted me on behalf of a (named) third party with that third party's concern that my edits on this article "are outside the spirit of fairness, as they create an overall false impression." The third party is apparently worried about intervening directly becauase of WP:COI and/or lack of experience in the academic/wikipedia culture. Boud (talk) 17:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

My response:

To the wikipedian: i'm afraid you'll just have to explain Wikipedian culture to the third party. It's more or less the same as what should be the rules of any academic review paper that does not present any original research results, but with much more intense and public peer-review - in practice possibly tens or hundreds of editors instead of just one or two, plus maybe thousands who review and don't see a need to edit. i did my best to NPOV summarise the key elements of the ICNC/Narco News workshop debate, though it's not so easy. There are many elements e.g. of Al G's reply, so it's hard to NPOV pick out one or two main points without doing OR (original research).

To the third party: please read the Wikipedia guideline about possible Conflicts Of Interest (COI). If you announce your potential COI and make an effort to edit in a neutral way, in principle, you could edit the article directly. There is no outright ban against this. Of course, humans are subjective and we are inclined to act in our own interests and, by definition, see things from our own point of view. A safer way to avoid COI would be to make edits on this talk page instead of directly in the article. You could copy/paste the source of the paragraph/sentence/section you wish to edit and propose the new version here. Discussion can happen on the talk page to come to a reasonable consensus. Someone will then put the consensus version in the article. Or if nobody does after a reasonable delay and there's no objection to the new version, then you could do the edit yourself, and add an edit comment like "proposed edit seemed to have consensus on talk page". In any case, propose some concrete text that you think is NPOV, reliably sourced, and not original research to this talk page (e.g. start a == section == for each main point), and there's a fair chance that other wikipedians will post something similar to the article itself.

To both: the article itself clearly could do with a lot of work, especially with third party sources. Maybe we could find some Wikileaks material where there is US classified material talking about plans to sabotage Narco News? It's hard to believe that the CIA has not put any thought into trying to do that! That would add extra documentation about NN's role as a dissident news organisation. More generally, i expect it could be hard to find mainstream sources, because one of the few effective strategies remaining for Western mainstream media to hide notable information is by refusing to acknowledge the existence or relevance of independent, grassroots media. However, the various court cases should have some of the court documents, or mainstream media reports about the cases, available.

My suggestion as to the best way of improving the "fairness" of the article is to add more (referenced) notable material. But that does require (unpaid) work. Do good work and other wikipedians will respect it! Boud (talk) 17:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

i tried summarising/extracting key points from the different people involved. Please make NPOV improvements. i'm just one humble editor... Boud (talk) 19:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Restoration of unsourced/poorly sourced content

It seems that Boud has restored my removal of non-reliably-sourced content and WP:OR. Why? That content is a mess, and doesn't say why these are important stories. It also doesn't give any evidence that they are important. In fact, neither does the rest of the article. The burden of proof is on the person who added the content and wishes to keep it in. The Wordsmith^Communicate 07:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

It would be easier to work on things step by step. This is a wiki - the way to improve a mess is to work on it, not just delete it. i haven't traced who added what material. i've started a section on this talk page for the section i worked on. As for the burden of proof, this is not a biographical article. Please assume good faith of the previous editors. Try looking for third-party sources, and you may find them.

Maybe you didn't notice it, but i added a "primary sources" tag. This alerts the reader and is intended to motivated people to look for secondary sources. That's why the tag exists. Boud (talk) 07:42, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Verifiability, especially the section found at WP:BURDEN. I will quote it for you, to make it easier: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page. (emphasis mine)

The material may damage the reputation of this organization and the living people involved in it. Therefore, I must again remove it. Please do not restore it until you can provide reliable secondary sources independent of the subject. The Wordsmith^Communicate 07:52, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

You are confusing two different wikipedia guidelines here. Notability and avoiding damage to reputations are two different issues. i agree that reputation can be considered a reasonably urgent issue.

Reputation: You claim that public statements by this organisation and the living people involved in it, and public statements by people associated with the organisation that have been published by that same organisation, may "damage the reputation" of the organisation and the living people involved with it. However, these are sourced to that same organisation. You seem to be saying that we cannot source a public statement by an organisation sourced to that organisation's website because the organisation's statement may damage its own reputation? It seems to me overwhelmingly obvious that all three parties intend their statements to be public, and have confidence in NN for publishing their statements. Surely it's not up to wikipedians to judge that NN has deliberately tried to damage its own reputation by publishing the statements?

Notability: Mainstream notability is a separate and less urgent issue to deal with. Let me requote what you left un-bolded: How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them. Boud (talk) 08:16, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

relations with other non-mainstream groups

In this edit, the edit comment was 'rm section only sourced to SPS', where SPS presumably means self-published source.

Unless there is good reason to suspect that Narco News falsified the letter by the TeleSur employees or ICNC's response, then in practice this source consists of at least three different sources: (1) the TeleSur employees and other participants in the Feb 2010 NN workshop, (2) Al Giordano on behalf of NN, (3) ICNC. Moreover, the first paragraph of the section consists of a summary of criticisms of NN in the words of group (1). Boud (talk) 07:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

But...why do we, as editors of an encyclopedia, care about this? Our job is to write about events based on third-party sources. I'm looking at this section, and i'm not seeing that any reliable sources have commented on it, except for the organizations themselves. This seems to be a feud between a few different organizations. However, it doesn't seem to be a notable incident. For example, when National Organization for Marriage and the Human Rights Campaign have a disagreement, it shows up in newspapers and on my local news. I'm not seeing that this incident has gotten any attention whatsoever. If other people don't write about these incidents, then neither can we. Unless some evidence can be provided, I'm going to have to trim the material. The Wordsmith^Communicate 07:37, 27 October 2010 (UTC)