Talk:Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman

removal of information

The Combatant Status Review section had a subsection "testimony" that i have removed for the following reasons: 1) I do not see the information is rightly placed under CSRT subsection "testimony". 2) The introduction does not make clear the real source for the text. 3) It is based on a questionable redacted primary source. 4) The introduction text presents this information as "brief biography" what i do not see as given. 5) The text includes allegation that needs multiply sources for verification. 6) The introduction text states that the source asserted: (all Uighur) "they where all caught at an "ETIM training camp". I do not see that a given in this reference. It may be the interpretation of the WP editor. I have strong concerns to present this in the way it has been done here. Please discuss. IQinn (talk) 08:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

1) If the introduction does not make something clear, fix it! :)

2) I'm unsure how the tribunal proceedings of the US military can be dubbed "questionable", we qualify all the statements explaining they're American allegations.

3) I re-loaded the 78-page document to which you are referring, the biography is absolutely present. Your failure to find it reminds of your failure last week to notice there were two pages to a cited document - and your subsequent attempt to remove sourced information from the article. Read things more closely before assuming sources are lying.

4) The text does not require multiple sources, it has a valid, reliable source which is reporting on itself. We are not using the military source to cite facts about the prisoner, we are using the military source to cite facts about the military's claims.

5) See #3. Your failure to read sources carefully is not cause to delete sourced information.

Reverted your removal of information, please do not do that in the future without consensus. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 04:06, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Sherurcij you are edit warring! And you are acting against the consensus of the whole Wikipedia community!

You have re-inserted controversial negative material into this BLP of a living person.

You have done this against the fact that the editor who has removed it has stated his BLP concerns clearly in the edit history and talk page.

You have not waited until consensus would have been achieved for re-inclusion.

Your edit summary and the five points you list here as your response to my concerns are mostly wrong. The material is controversial and problematic and i am willing to discuss this in an orderly manner.

I have checked the article, sources and your comment again carefully. I still have strong concerns.

It is strong consensus on Wikipedia to remove and not to re-insert material that has been marked as possible problematic by other editors.

I ask you in a friendly way to end your edit war and to remove this controversial negative material from this BLP article now until things for re-inclusion and way of presentation has been discussed and solved. IQinn (talk) 08:10, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

removal of valid and useful wikilinks

This article is one of a series that had a number of valid and useful wikilinks removed with an edit summary "unlink interpretation of questionable source". I don't think this is a sufficient explanation, and I don't think this removal of wikilinks was a good idea.

Since I raised this issue the contributor who removed several thousand wikilinks in a series of 250 edits listed here, has asserted they already sufficiently explained these excisions.

I have told that contributor multiple times, and I repeat here, that I accept, at face value, that they honestly believe they have sufficiently explained themselves. All I ask in return is that they accept that after checking everything they have written I can not find a meaningful, substantive, policy-based explanation for the excisions, so I ask that they rephrase their telling argument, of offer diffs to where they originally made the telling argument, or cut and paste the key passages from their telling argument.

When I raised this issue at WP:ANI one contributor told me WP:SOFIXIT. If no meaningful, substantive, policy based explanation is offered in a reasonable period of time I think I am entitled to restore the wikilinks in the following passage. Geo Swan (talk) 16:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

a. The detainee is associated with the Taliban and supported hostilities against the United States and its coalition partners: The detainee traveled to Afghanistan because he heard Uyghur people could receive military training there. The detainee arrived in Afghanistan from China via Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan in June 2001. The detainee stayed at a Uighur guesthouse in Pakistan. The detainee attended a Uighur training camp in Afghanistan. The detainee received training in the use of the Kalishnikov rifle [sic] and a type of pistol. The detainee decided to travel to Afghanistan and join the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is a terrorist organization. The detainee was captured in Pakistan after crossing the border from Afghanistan. b. The detainee supported military operations against the coalition. The detainee was injured during U.S. air strikes. The detainee worked construction and improvement of the Uyghur training camp while in Afghanistan. The detainee was in the Tora Bora mountains during the U.S. air campaign.

Was this information on a previous version of the page? It appears this is the material (or close to it) from declassified or leaked US government reports, right? It's worth noting this account of events, since it formed the pretext for his continued extralegal imprisonment. Though I'm not sure how to best reconcile this material with some of the other accounts of how he and the other Uighurs ended up in US custody (that they were lured to a mosque in Pakistan and basically sold out to the Americans). Any guidance would be helpful, as I'm just trying to acquaint myself with all that has transpired on this article.—Zujine|talk 06:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• @Zujine:, the passage quoted above never received a secret classification. It had been marked "NOFORN" -- ie "no foreign". Journalists at the Associated Press requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. The DoD declined to release it under FOI, so the AP sued the DoD. The Government argument, believe it or not, was that they were withholding the identity of the captives, and all the allegations against them, out of a concern for the captive's privacy.

No, I am not making this up. Jed Rakoff was sarcastic when he rejected the DoD's claim of concern. Eventually the DoD ended up publlishing OARDEC documents from 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. The DoD appealed, in the very conservative DC court of appeals, this time arguing "National Security". So the 2008 round of status hearings did not end up being released. If a 2008 round was held it would have reviewed less than one hundred captives, as most had been either cleared for release, or had been released, or both.

In 2004 about 60 percent of the captives attended their status review hearing. But, by 2007 the percent who participating had dropped to just three, about three percent.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 07:36, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Certain tags require explanation on the talk page...

Certain tags require explanation on the talk page.

This edit added

• {{POV}}
• {{cleanup-reorganize}}
• {{notability|Biographies}}
• {{undue}}

When instantiated {{POV}} tells readers they can find the tag placer's explanation on the talk page. No explanation has been provided.

{{Undue}}, when instantiated, says:

“An editor has expressed a concern that this article lends undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, controversies or matters relative to the article subject as a whole. Please help to create a more balanced presentation. Discuss and resolve this issue before removing this message. (July 2012)”

It seems to me this tag too implies that the editor who placed the tag has explained their concern. Geo Swan (talk) 03:11, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

• {{POV}} because the article is entirely from the US govt. Point of view and the information it released about the prisoners to news media.
• {{undue}} because The incident of trial/containment are explained in great detail. and saying only a line or two about the Biography of the person.

Also please see WP:BOMBARD and take care not to use it in articles--DBigXray 05:36, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

• Template:POV/doc says:

Do not use this template unless there is an ongoing dispute in an article... The editor placing this template in an article should promptly begin a discussion on the article's talk page. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant, then this tag may be removed by any editor. The purpose of this group of templates is to attract editors with different viewpoints to edit articles that need additional insight. This template should not be used as a badge of shame. Do not use this template to "warn" readers about the article. This template should only be applied to articles that are reasonably believed to lack a neutral point of view. The neutral point of view is determined by the prevalence of a perspective in high-quality reliable sources, not by its prevalence among Wikipedia editors.

This tag was placed when there wasn't an ongoing dispute.

Sorry, it seems to me that a lack of attention on the part of the tag placer puts this simultaneous placement of four tags in the “badge of shame” category.

I question whether the {{POV}} tag is being used appropriately. First, POV's primary meaning on the wikipedia has always been the injection of a contributor's own personal opinion into an article. The use of WP:RS that are written from a particular point of view can be totally compliant with policy. I think the wording of the 4th numbered clause of the tag's documentation specifically warns wikipedia contributors not to use this tag when they think the underline RS are biased.

• Template:Undue/doc says:

...This tag should be used on articles that discuss one aspect of the article in too much detail. This is especially true if the article focuses on a non-importance aspect of the topic while ignoring items of importance.

So, first, I ask the tag placer -- are you challenging whether Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman, (1) dangerous immigration from China; (2) work building the refugee camp; (3) subsequent flight from the US bombardment of the refugee camp; (4) long extrajudicial detention; (5) legal fight over whether he qualifies for access to habeas corpus; Bush administration sudden dropping of all claims he was an enemy combatant; (6) long dispute over whether the USA owed him political asylum in the USA; (7) decision to accept a lifetime of exile in one of the smallest and most isolated nations on Earth are not “items of importance”?

The tag placer wrote, above “...saying only a line or two about the Biography of the person.” By “...Biography of the person...” I think the tag placer means mundane biographical details, like where he went to school, the names of his wife and children.

Those who identify themselves as “deletionists” are in two camps about this kind of detail. One camp of deletionists drafted WP:PUFF -- where they decry the inclusion of non-notabable biographical details in articles as attempts to “puff” up brief article to mask that they don't contain enough to establish an individual is notable.

In my opinion these kinds of details should be included, when RS have established them -- but when some or all of these details are unknown this is not a reason to challenge an article. I have written about an individual who I consider the perfect counter-example. The famous science writer Isaac Asimov wrote Isaac Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science. My 2nd edition contains 1000 brief biographies that range from a single paragraph to a few pages in length. Asimov was able to supply at least a couple of the mundane biographical details about most of these individuals. But there was a medieval alchemist Asimov called “false Geber” about whom absolutely nothing is known. I called him the first sockpuppet. Prior to the invention of the printing press all books had to be manually transcribed. Copying a single book could take a year. Authors of new works faced a daunting burden as there was great pressure to assign the limited number of scribes to duplicating classical works that were wearing out. So some new authors would employ sockpuppetry to get their ideas circulated. They would attribute their new work to a famous writer from the past. Most of these new authors are forgotten, as their new work was detected as a forgery and/or was not regarded as adding anything of value. But according to Asimov, false Geber was an exception. He was the first writer to describe how to purify and use Sulphuric Acid -- the first strong acid to be purified. Asimov described it a key moment in the development of modern chemistry. Because his key work was a forgery, we don't know where or when it was written. We don't know the author's name, where he was born, where he lived, where he studied, his religion, whether he was married. We know zero of the mundane biographical details of this important person.

Mundane biographical details are desirable, when substantiated by RS, but the lack of them is not grounds to challenge an article. Geo Swan (talk) 11:24, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

• Tag placer wrote:

  “POV because the article is entirely from the US govt. Point of view and the information it released about the prisoners to news media.”

I put the second part of the passage in bold because I am concerned that it suggests a truly profound misunderstanding of WP:NPOV.

When an WP:RS publishes an article, that relies wholly or in part on official documents, the POV in the document is that of the columnist, or the publication -- not of the government organ that published the documents they used while writing their article. WP:RS have editorial policies professional editors. We trust WP:RS because their editorial policies require them to do some fact-checking. Their editorial policies require them to employ writers who bring a competent understanding of the topic they cover to their writing. Articles published in WP:RS have their own reliability, and a separate and distinct point of view from whatever sources the article is reporting on. Geo Swan (talk) 17:38, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Recent referencectomy

This recent edit excised 2K worth of references, with the edit summary “removed WP:BOMBARD”. A subsequent edit, by the same contributor removed a passage of 400 bytes, with the edit summary “Temporary Asylum in Palau: Original research not supported by the sources”.

I reverted these two edits, with the edit summary “revert referencectomy -- see talk”.

In my opinion that second edit summary used unnecessarily inflammatory language. Instances when references don't substantiate some aspect of the text could be original research, but there are other explanations. A {{cn}} tag is probably more appropriate.

The informationectomy followed closely after the referencectomy. The reference that substantiated the passage may have been one in the referencectomy. Exciser didn't leave a note here on the talk page explaining what they thought was not substantiated.

With regard to WP:BOMBARD -- it is an essay, not a policy. I initiated a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 97#Should we create a new namespace, for essays? [1]. I think everyone there agreed citing essays as if they were policies is a serious problem.

I think the advice in Bombard is aimed at contributors who might be including references which are too similar to one another. Contributors who think some other contributor have other options for voicing this concern. I was going to say {{linkfarm}} and {{Too many references}} were good choices. But {{linkfarm}} is for too many “External links”, while Too many references was deleted, because most who weighed in there thought we could never have too many good references.

Several who weighed in at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 September 21#Template:Too many references distinguished between the value of lots of good references, and the addition of redundant references -- as when multiple newspapers all run essentially identical stories from a single wire service. But the references removed in this referencectomy weren't all from a single wire service. Geo Swan (talk) 16:00, 5 July 2012 (UTC)