Talk:Maia arson crimew/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Vaticidalprophet (talk · contribs) 08:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

This is good work for how much drama was surrounding it. It's a first attempt, and it does have some serious structural considerations. Some are relatively simple; some might require digging deep for resolution, or end up unable to be satisfactorily resolved.

My first points:

1. The lead. Leads are hard. This is a pretty classic case of the situation where an article's body gets expanded while the lead is left behind. For this article, you can definitely handle 1-2 paragraphs solid prose, and I'd probably recommend closer to two. To give some examples of my own work, my first GA expanded the lead from this to this, and a recent BLP GA of mine expanded from this to this.
2. The pronouns. This is a bit of a blind spot for things the MOS has specifically decreed, but we can gather from the gaps in MOS:ID and MOS:GENDERID what the missing words are. Treegate aside, the preference has been to use the most 'typical' pronoun set, e.g. singular they rather than neopronouns. In the case of a subject who uses multiple pronoun sets, the de facto preference is he/she > they > other. (We use he for Elliot Page, which is probably the most 'developed' article for a subject with multiple pronoun sets.) I'd be inclined to call her as such.
3. The focus. The former two notes are style issues; this is a substance one. The purpose of WP:BIO1E (not to be confused with WP:BLP1E, which is essentially WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE without the middleman) is that biographical articles should be biographies, not "some stuff happened and a person was involved". Does Kottmann have the coverage to discuss her, and not just what she did? The article doesn't represent this. For another example from my own work, I'd point to Sophie Jamal -- also a shorter article about a person whose notability comes from her involvement in a criminal/misconduct incident, which has short but solid coverage of her life outside the case. What we know about Kottmann-as-a-person from here is her DOB and her location, but not really anything else. Even looking at the sources there's room to expand those things -- it's not clear from the article that her location is such a major factor in whether or not she can be prosecuted -- and if there's a solid biographical article here, it would want to have a fair amount more.

So that's where we're starting from. Will see how this evolves. Vaticidalprophet 08:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

A note that I'm looking at the edits, which are pretty good. As a note for the pronouns, a number of other articles on multi-pronoun subjects, such as Rebecca Sugar and Carly Usdin, have a footnote clarifying the pronoun use at the first mention. It seems like adding that would be useful here, considering sources are split on this (and look to be split differently depending on what language they're written in, too). Vaticidalprophet 19:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll add a footnote, and then I think I've gotta take a break for now and focus on things in meatspace. When I come back I'll start working on the lead and probably do some prose cleanup in the body, and maybe find some more sources if I can. ezlev^tlk
_ctrbs 19:20, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Took a swing at the lead. It's still not there yet and I already have some ideas for improvement... but it's better than it was? Just as a note, I'll be busy and unable to devote much time to wiki for the next 24h or so. I'll be back, though! ezlev^tlk
_ctrbs 01:29, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

This is definitely shaping up into a solid biography. Two style notes as you go working on the substance:

1. born 1999, also known as deletescape and tillie crimew isn't a great way to present that information -- we generally have brackets reserved for dates of birth. Tillie Kottmann (born August 7, 1999), also known as deletescape and tillie crimew is more typical. (Also, although as a subject with no particular ties to any English-speaking country you're free to use whatever DMY/MDY you want, note that this sometimes inspires WP:LAME edit wars. Not a GAN note, more a weary warning from experience.)
2. Hammond and Swartz are both linked in the article, so not really necessary in the see-also. While I think the "don't repeat links from the body" in MOS:SEEALSO is better IARed a decent chunk of the time, in this case we're talking about a short article where they're prominently in the new-n-improved lead.

Vaticidalprophet 05:37, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

For the purpose of posterity/making it easier to track from WP:GAN what's going on and where, I'm putting the review "on hold" -- that is, acknowledge it's outside of the "begin review" stage and in the "significant work on the article" stage. As you're new to the GAN process, I'm clarifying here that this is a technical rather than practical matter (the review continues as usual, it's just symbolic of the progress) and that the numbers in the templates Legobot sends shouldn't be taken too seriously -- many articles spend weeks or months in the process, especially when they're being edited for substance and not just style. (That is -- there's no rush.) Vaticidalprophet 10:18, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

As you seem to be editing right now, I'll make some notes about "Personal life":

1. Section placement is fine. Most personal life sections are at the end of an article, but having them at the beginning is a significant minority and approved by MOS (which is intentionally flexible about sections and their placement for most articles). This is a case where the personal life section deals a lot with stuff she did before being notable, and placement at the beginning helps readability with those.
2. The dogbin thing is cleanup-tagged for low-quality sourcing. Is this covered in any independent sources?
3. You currently have three short/choppy paragraphs; I think this would read better as two fuller ones. I'd also move a fair amount of it around. Currently you have para 1 as date of birth, location, gender/names (in the same sentence; they're different clauses and I'd be inclined to put them in different sentences), para 2 as employment, and para 3 as politics/discrimination. I think this would work better as sort of a "data paragraph" and a "theory paragraph", if that makes sense -- para 1 describing her physical circumstances and employment history (including online stuff and screen names), para 2 describing ideology, discrimination, what she was discriminated against for (gender). The political candidacy could probably go in either.

Vaticidalprophet 19:45, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the notes!! These are extremely helpful.

1. Sweet, that's what I figured!
2. No, I just checked again and the dogbin thing pretty definitely can't be independently sourced. I cut it from the article.
3. Just restructured the section based on this, and wow, it's a lot better than it was.

I'm going to check for new sources in one or two more places and then assume that the article has all the sourcing it's going to for the time being. More tips would be lovely if you've got time, since I'm starting to feel like I've read this article so many times that I don't even see a lot of its style/flow issues at this point. ezlev_tlk/ctrbs 20:12, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I'll be here for a while :) The subject is interesting enough, and a few coverage gaps visible enough to me, that I'm considering flexing my 'novice freelance journo' semi-credentials out for a press interview to make a new RS for the article...but that's a long shot. There's definitely a strong article emerging here, and I'm still just beginning to go through and see where we can chip it out. No rush for anything -- I'll keep going through the article to see what is and isn't. Vaticidalprophet 20:18, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Under "Data and source code leaks", the line as of July 2020 she maintained a Telegram channel where she shared details about leaks by others stands out to me. As I understand from her social media, a lot of that stuff was compromised or taken down at some point. Do we have any up-to-date idea of what happened to the channel? A less-good source is fine -- the "this is important enough to mention in the article" is already covered by the channel itself being covered in RSes. Vaticidalprophet 19:09, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

What I added a few hours ago is all I've been able to find on that front. ezlev_tlk/ctrbs 05:43, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

That's fine, because what you've added is great -- just what I was hoping we'd get. There are other date-related claims in the article that I think might need looking at, in particular the line As of April 3, 2021, a crowdfunding campaign had been created to raise money for her to retain a lawyer in the United States and had raised $4,000 of its $10,000 goal. I can't imagine the campaign has the same number nearly two months on, and as a result I'm unsure we need to give a number for how much it's raised and when -- it gives an updates-up-to-the-minute impression that causes WP:NOTNEWS issues. I think this can be restructed to simply mention a crowdfund was created.

Also, the "also known as" piped to Pseudonym is a MOS:EGG issue. That should either be unlinked or restructured to mention the word 'pseudonym'. Vaticidalprophet 13:51, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Removed the detail about the crowdfund. Not sure why I used a pipe there, but also known as redirects to pseudonym. Does that mitigate the issue? If not, I can just remove the link, but something should also probably be done about that redirect. ezlev_tlk/ctrbs 19:26, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Linking 'also known as' is fine. Linking stuff any reader would be expected to recognize is unpopular, but the degree to which it's unpopular is interpreted differently and I wouldn't remove such a link if I saw it. This is going fairly well, so I'll go through the sources and prose soon (I've been doing so, but not to the point of giving a full review of both) and get back to you on prose quality/close paraphrasing/etc for a full review. Vaticidalprophet 19:55, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Just an FYI - in passing, I found that weird and unlinked it. I don't see a need to link it at all. Elli (talk | contribs) 11:23, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

That's entirely fine. As I said, different people read overlinking differently, and I know and admit I'm on the liberal end. Vaticidalprophet 11:30, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Vaticidalprophet, I'm realizing I should tell you I'll be completely offwiki from the 21st through most of July. I have no desire to rush you or this process – just wanted to let you know. ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 19:46, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

That's fine -- confident I'll have at least the bulk of this wrapped up by then. Vaticidalprophet 19:49, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Alright, here we go. (Aside: I've removed the box, because they're annoying to update for something that's changed radically over the course of the GAN.) Prose and sourcing.

Kottmann is non-binary,[7] uses she/her, they/them, it/its, and fae/faer pronouns,[1] and is also known as "deletescape" and "tillie crimew".[8]

I'm still unconvinced that this should be one sentence. "Kottman is nonbinary and uses [pronouns]" (aside: is 'nonbinary' or 'transfeminine' more accurate for the article? both?), and as for her screen names, I'm not actually sure 'personal life' is where they fit most naturally. "Under the pseudonym 'deletescape', she did [thing X]" and "under the pseudonym 'tillie crimew', she did [thing Y]" in relevant sections appears to fit better. Also, though 'deletescape' is a notable pseudonym, I'm not sure there's any coverage regarding 'tillie crimew', and it's close enough to her actual name it may end up just being omitted if you can't find much about it elsewhere.

was a candidate for Lucerne City Council in 2020

This looks to be a bit more discussed in the sources -- her slogan translates for me as "Capitalism destroys creativity" (there may be a more accurate translation?), and that seems to be a fun thing to mention. I think it would also work somewhat better from a 'show, don't tell' perspective about her ideologies. It's one thing to say she's an anti-capitalist anarchist, but it comes across better to readers if you instead focus on what she said to Bloomberg, her political memberships, her run for council...On that note, I think there's a bit too much focus on political motive. Her friends talking to Zentralplus seem to treat the hack as at least somewhat apolitical/driven by fun rather than ideology, and it's worth mentioning that.

As a result, she was credited with originating the Nintendo Gigaleak by Bleeping Computer, but she later told Tom's Guide that Nintendo data was not included in the leak.

"As a result" is superfluous. It may also be worth adding from the source that the Gigaleak was never on GitLab at all.

Kottmann's Twitter account was suspended after she used it to share multiple screenshots of live security camera feeds. Sharing hacked information is against Twitter's terms of service.

I don't really like this phrasing, and I'm not sure it isn't WP:PLEONASM. ("You mean a major mainstream internet corp isn't cool with data leaks?") At most, I think "suspended for violations of Twitter's terms of service after she used it to..." works better.

The hack was apparently relatively simple: the group managed to gain “Super Admin”-level access to Verkada’s system using a username and password they found publicly on the internet.

This is a quote from the Verge source. It's not -- so far as I can see? -- in the article, and seems worth mentioning that they used public information.

sold hacking-related merchandise including t-shirts

Bit of a run-on, I think. "Such as" flows a bit more naturally than 'included', and you may or may not want a comma after 'merchandise'.

After the raid of Kottmann's home, people used the hashtag "#freetillie" to express support for her

I think this is better worded with the clauses flipped -- "people used the hashtag #freetillie to express support for Kottmann after the raid of her home".

Switzerland's Federal Department of Justice and Police confirmed to zentralplus that it does not extradite Swiss nationals against their will

zentralplus have a dewiki article, which should be linked accordingly (also in the refs). As for those refs with no articles on any project, I'm not sure they should be redlinked.

Otherwise, all broadly good. Vaticidalprophet 21:14, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for this! Notes as I work:

• I split off the "also known as" sentence but left it in the personal life section for now. I took "tillie crimew" out of the lede but left it in the sentence sourced to the Justice Department press release, again, for now. See the bottom of this message.
• I added a bit about the city council slogan, though I didn't say it was Kottmann's slogan specifically, since I couldn't find a source that said that. I also moved the "tell" part to the end of the paragraph so the "show" part would come first, which puts things in chronological order.
  • I also added the "hacking for fun" thing from the Zentralplus article to the section about the Verkada hack.
• Gigaleak tweaks:  Done
• Twitter tweaks:  Done
• Public credentials:  Done
• "including" -> "such as":  Done
• Flip clauses:  Done
• Interwiki links and redlink removal:  Done

I honestly don't expect to find much about Kottmann doing certain things under specific pseudonyms, because I think it was always public or semi-public knowledge that both "deletescape" and "tillie crimew" were her, so RS coverage just used her name. Remove them entirely? Remove from lede but leave them in personal life? Just leave it as-is? Let me know what you think. ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 22:25, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the current use of pseudonyms you have ('deletescape' in lead, 'deletescape' and 'tillie crimew' in body) is fine. All good but for one last point -- since moving stuff around you now have Being queer and experiencing discrimination contributed to the development of Kottmann's political views as the first sentence of the politics paragraph in personal life, when I think it fits better still coming after the label-description of what her politics are, so last sentence now. Vaticidalprophet 22:41, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

 Moved! ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 23:35, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm happy with it.  Passed, and excellent work! Vaticidalprophet 00:15, 7 June 2021 (UTC)