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List of doping allegations against Lance Armstrong (
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The closing admin, who did not even ascertain whether the article in question was a legitimate spinout or not prior to making the decision to delete, claims arguments for deletion of this spinout article were "clearly made" and does not see that they were refuted. As the one who clearly refuted each pro-deletion argument, I strongly disagree. Admin concedes that "some" of the material belongs in the main article, though does not offer any guidance as to how to decide what content to show our readers, and what to censor. Attempts to resolve with admin
here failed.BACKGROUND: The topic in question is a list of ten serious and well sourced doping allegations, documented in reliable secondary sources, about Lance Armstrong. This list was originally a section of the main
Lance Armstrong article, but was made into a separate spinout article because it was
determined by consensus to be too much content for the main article, per
CFORK. At the time the spinout article was created, most of the content
was removed from the relevant section in the main article, and summarized there. According to
WP:BLP#Public figures, each and every one (not just some) of these "notable, relevant, and well-documented [allegations]" about a public person belong in the article ("If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented, it belongs in the article")., but according to
CFORK spinout that much material belongs in a separate spinout article. Since each of the ten allegations are serious and properly sourced, I don't see any justification for not including any one of them in either the main article or a spinout. I'm not sure how to reconcile this conflict (about whether the content belongs in main article or spinout), except I'm sure the solution is not to omit from Wikipedia any of the content which is all supposed to be included per
WP:BLP. So the only solution I can envision is undeleting this spinout article. Besides, there was no consensus to delete among those participating (9 keep votes; 8 delete votes), so isn't the default to keep?
Born2cycle (
talk)
05:20, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse deletion. Most editors advocating retention missed the point entirely, arguing simply that the material was notable and "well-sourced". Being "well-sourced" is not and never has been a sufficient condition for inclusion; in fact, some of the worst attack-pages that I have seen have been rigorously sourced. Only Jclemens adequately addressed the neutrality issue and hedged his view with caveats and concern.
CIreland (
talk)
05:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- I don't understand. The criteria for inclusion of allegations about public figures is explicitly and clearly stated at
WP:BLP#Public figures: "If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If it is not documented by reliable third-party sources, leave it out.". Please note that this means that allegations that meet this criteria not only may be included, but it "belongs in the article". This is not an attack page by any stretch; I don't understand that point at all. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
05:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Sorry if I was unclear - my point was simply that being well-sourced does not ensure neutrality and I used the extreme example of well-sourced attack pages to illustrate that. I did not say that this article was an attack page.
CIreland (
talk)
06:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Then why are you endorsing the decision to delete? How is removal of any of this content not a violation of
WP:BLP#Public figures? And what about the point about there being a lack of consensus to delete? --
Born2cycle (
talk)
06:11, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- I'm endorsing the closure based on the quality of the arguments presented - the function of DRV, not re-arguing the AfD. That being said, the BLP policy says much more than that single quotation, as does
WP:NPOV. The chief issue at AfD was the weight that a separate article gives to unproven allegations.
CIreland (
talk)
06:20, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Yes, and I've read BLP. And NPOV. What I'm curious about is what specifically in any of that or in any policy supports deletion of this material and effectively overrides the section which specifically addresses this exact situation... well-sourced allegations about
public figures (an argument I did present in the Afd).
When I presented this argument at the AfD, the response was that that applies only to content in the main article, which strikes me as bureaucratic technicality and brings us to the question I asked above. So the context is supposed to be in the main article per
WP:BLP#Public figures but in a spinout article per the spinout rule. How do we resolve that? By removing it entirely from Wikipedia? How does that make any sense? --
Born2cycle (
talk)
06:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- (BTW, thanks for the compliment. I really think this sort of a decision needs a non-boolean discussion, and I appreciate that you and some others are noting that as well, even if we disagree on the outcome.)
Jclemens (
talk)
16:24, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse own close, and suggest Born2Cycle stops making claims that aren't true. The fact I used "if", rather than "since" in a sentence on my talk page doesn't mean I didn't look at the history of the article - I obviously did. No-one is suggesting "censoring" the material; I clearly stated that the material may (even should) belong elsewhere. Also, the claim that he "refuted" every argument for deletion is just that; an opinion. Another opinion might be that he merely wikilawyered every opposing argument to death, as appeared to be happening here as well. Born2Cycle might do well to let the DRV run; people don't tend to change their minds when they're being badgered.
Black Kite (t)
- Comment So, this is an interesting and problematic problem in Wikipedia, where a confluence of factors can be combined to end up with an improper result. While I don't think the page was ever an attack page, let us assume for the sake of discussion that it was. It remains well sourced, and it remains quite large relative to the rest of Armstrong's own article. By forcing a merge (which is what this amounts to, a de-merge), the net effect is to force the truncation of the well-sourced allegations... or is it? UNDUE actually says that material about a topic should be covered in proportion to the associated coverage in reliable sources. Can the entire allegations article simply be added, wholesale, into the main article? If not, why not? UNDUE? It becomes less tenable once we focus off of the "what makes a nice looking balanced article" and properly re-focus on "how do reliable sources cover this topic", which in the case of Lance Armstrong is about a cyclist without peer beset by doping allegations for years. As always, when we have sourced content, the question should be less about "should this article be deleted or kept?" and more on "What is the best way to represent this topic for this encyclopedia's readers?"
Jclemens (
talk)
06:44, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Yes; to be honest if the article title had been something like "Lance Armstrong controversies" rather than the slightly dubious one that it was, I may well have just merged and redirected. Having said that, the material is still in the history of the main article prior to it being spun out, so it's not as if it's been lost or there will be any attribution issues.
Black Kite (t)
(c)
08:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Comment All I can find about how to treat material in a spinout relative to the main article is
here: "However, it is possible for article spinouts to become POV forks. If a statement is inadmissible for content policy reasons at an article
XYZ, then it is also inadmissible at a spinout
Criticism of XYZ. " In other words, unless I'm missing something, to argue that a spinout is a POV fork you have to show that the content would not be admissible if it were in the main article; the criteria for inclusion of content in spinouts does not appear to be any different from the criteria for inclusion within the main article. And the consensus of the AfD (including the admin closer) was that none of the content in particular did not belong in the main article per the inclusion rules, therefore it did belong in the spinout. Hope this helps. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
06:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse - back to basics: Like all debates on Wikipedia, a conclusion or a consensus is not based on a simple tally of !votes, especially when that tally is a tie or extremely close run. The tie breaker here was the quality of the arguments that outweighed the one-majority 'keep' !votes.--
Kudpung (
talk)
07:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Comment - I just happened to stumble on another thread (15 October) where User:Born2Cycle stated quite unambiguously "consensus is more than the votes of the participants". --
Kudpung (
talk)
08:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Yes, in a
WP:RM discussion "consensus is more than the votes of the participants". There is no default at
WP:RM. We close entirely based on consensus, but consensus as determined by looking not only at the votes, but the strength of the arguments, and the consensus of the overall community as expressed via policy, guidelines and naming conventions.
The reason I asked about a default at AfD is I noticed that in the 2010 Ryder Cup photograph discussion
yesterday
User:SmokeyJoe stated, "Closer did the right thing, although it was not a consensus to keep, but in the absence of a consensus to delete, defaults to keep.", and nobody challenged that assertion. If someone said something like that in WP:RM discussion, I suspect it would be challenged. So, apparently, the default is to keep? Or is that just a rationalization used when it conveniently supports the outcome that happens to be preferred in a given discussion? --
Born2cycle (
talk)
16:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Two more comments of yours in various discussions were also: "consensus is determined not just by raw count, but by merits of the arguments/reasons." and "Closers are supposed to weigh the persuasiveness of the arguments, not just do a raw count..." Irrespective of the kind of debate and what the recommended outcomes should default to, the Wikipedia debate policy, which you apparently appear to endorse elsewhere, was accurately applied here by the closer. --
Kudpung (
talk)
20:50, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Yes, Kudpung, those comments are consistent what I just said above. What's your point?
I ask the 3rd time... is the default at AfD to keep as
User:SmokeyJoe stated and to which no one objected? Or is that just a rationalization used when it conveniently supports the outcome that happens to be preferred in a given discussion? --
Born2cycle (
talk)
21:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Hi Born2cycle. I answered on my talk page, and above, before I saw this. An article that can do harm is very different. Closers are much less likely to allow a default to keep where there is a potential for harm. "no consensus defaults to keep" is not so simple where there is a BLP concern. Black Kite made a fair close, but you are right in that he deleted material that is suitable. It was the organisation and presentation that is unacceptable. If that can be fixed, (see my comments above), I read that Black Kite is more than willing to give you access to the deleted content to allow something different to be written under a different title. --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
20:35, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse Any AfD where DGG recommends deletion, usually means the article should be deleted. That having been said, I've looked at the deleted article and the AfD. The concerns raised there were valid and the conclusion reached by Black Kite was absolutely reasonable. I would also note that since many of the participants believed this to be a BLP violation, so perhaps
User talk:Born2cycle/armstrong-allegations should not be hosted on Wikipedia.
AniMate
09:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Strongly endorse. I question the basic
competence of anyone who advocates for this sort of article to be retained. Either by weighing the arguments to delete (which he did) or by simply invoking
WP:BLP and be done with it (which he didn't, but I would have supported that if necessary), there was no recourse other than to delete this drivel. It deserves mention, neutrally and rationally-worded, in the main Armstrong article certainly, but what amounts to a a standalone "Criticism of..." article is simply horrid.
Tarc (
talk)
13:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- The problem with these two above opinions is that they don't match what BLP actually says. 1) The article didn't "serve no other purpose" than to attack Armstrong, as I explained in my AfD rationale, 2) the allegations are indisputably well sourced, 3) Armstrong is absolutely a public figure, and 4) this is not an isolated incident--coverage has been ongoing for years. All participants need to keep in mind that BLP is not a license to whitewash or avoid controversy: it's a mandate to avoid unsourced controversy that may harm real people. Accusations against Armstrong are already more than public.
Jclemens (
talk)
14:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Actually it does, as I do not accept your explanation for criteria #1. We don't need a bulleted laundry list of of each and every accusation. The text at
Lance Armstrong#Allegations of drug use is more than enough.
Tarc (
talk)
14:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Each and every one of the ten "accusations" is a separate notable event or incident that is well sourced. Omitting any one of them from Wikipedia is censoring content that, according to
BLP#Public figures, "belongs" in. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
15:49, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- "Don't break out the "OMG TEH CENSORSHIP" battlecry for something like this, it is absolutely pathetic. They are not separate, notable, or individual events. They are unproven allegations, nothing more. Put a bit more effort into writing content fit for an encyclopedia, rather than material fit for TMZ.
Tarc (
talk)
16:00, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Why does the censorship battlecry not apply here? What part of
WP:BLP#Public figures do you not understand or not agree with? It clearly states, "If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it." Why does this not apply to each and every allegation separately? If it "belongs in the article", but editors are not allowing it, how is that not censorship?
There is no question about removing content that violates
WP:BLP. But
WP:BLP (specifically
WP:BLP#Public figures ) addresses this exact situation, and clearly states this content belongs. Not
WP:BLP nor any other policy supports removal of this content, therefore, removal is
censorship, by definition. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
17:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Your bucket might carry water here if this were about trying to remove the information from the Armstrong article itself, but the allegations are given a paragraph or so of treatment there. I find it to be more encyclopedic and less tabloid-ish to discuss the allegations as a broad topic. A list of every "on this date this was alleged", "on this date that was alleged", to me, gives to much of a spotlight onto something that is only a part of the man's biography.
Tarc (
talk)
17:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Now we're getting somewhere. Please look at the
September 13, 2010 version of the
Lance Armstrong article. Note that the content in question was then in the Armstrong article itself, just a little over a month ago, and that it was well established, having started back in 2004 with
this edit (of course it evolved since then as the list of allegations grew since then). Therefore, the net effect of 1)
removing that material from the main article and putting into a new
spinout, and 2) the subsequent deletion of that spinout per the AfD in question, is censorship of that well-established content, right?
As to the import and relevance of this list, these allegations go to the root of why this particular figure is notable in the first place. The U.S. federal government is currently spending months investigating these allegations. This is not something that is "only a part of the man's biography"; it questions the legitimacy of what makes him notable in the first place. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
18:43, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- This kind of thing is annoying. It's undue weight to have too much of this in the LA article, but it's also undue weight and maybe an attack to have it in an article by itself. At the same time Wikipedia isn't censored, and information that is well sourced and clearly notable should rarely be deleted. Apparently the sources were largely deadlinks, which is troubling for an article like this and an issue that was raised in the AfD quite a bit. I'd say endorse deletion but allow recreation under a better name if every single issue can be documented in a live RS. I also believe that we can probably write the material (and sources) densely enough that the information can go in the main article without too much in the way of UNDUE issues (perhaps undue number of sources in that section, but I think that's acceptable)
Hobit (
talk)
14:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Comment I've started a broader discussion
here.
Hobit (
talk)
14:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse – Arguments for deletion significantly outweigh the reasons for retention given, which merely amount to "well-sourced" and "it's notable" without bearing anything else in mind. As an aside (not having participated in the AFD), this is another example of what happens when
WP:V and
WP:RS are blindly followed without taking anything else into consideration or following any other common sense. –
MuZemike
14:41, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Really? Really? That's all you can muster in a case like this? The comment may be pithy, but ignores the nuances of the case, the article, and how BLP is written vs. applied.
Jclemens (
talk)
14:50, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Question I'm more and more baffled. Can someone who endorses the deletion please identify specific wording in
WP:BLP,
WP:NPOV,
WP:UNDUE, or any other policy, that supports either complete removal of the content in question, or the argument that this content should not be in a separate
WP:SPINOUT, ideally something that clearly overrides
WP:BLP#Public figures according to which each and every one of these notable and well-sourced allegations about a public figure belongs in Wikipedia? Thanks. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
15:55, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- This is the same tone and tenor of the type of
truth-seekers that pester the Barack Obama topic area from time to time, with "IT'S RELIABLY SOURCED!" their motto.
Tarc (
talk)
16:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Tarc, you can snark all you want within reason, but Born2cycle asked a reasonable question that you responded to with a non-answer. Can you or someone else please answer it, rather than dismissing it?
Jclemens (
talk)
16:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Tarc, thank you. If one thinks that these allegations about Armstrong's doping are similar to "truth-seeker" allegations about Obama, I can begin to understand the objection. If you can cite a specific example of pestering about Obama, I would be happy to explain the difference. My questions stands. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
16:24, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- I rarely entertain pedantic questions, sorry. Though DRV invariably strays that way, we're really not here to re-argue the original AfD, only to review the closing admin's actions. This is simple, editorial judgment of whether or not a list of allegations or accusations of a crime against a living person is encyclopedia material; editors made the better argument that it was not.
Tarc (
talk)
16:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Fair enough. Can you then at least explain how you determine what is a "better argument" here? Will you acknowledge nothing in the supposed "better argument" cited anything about what any policy or guideline had to say about this whatsoever? And that the supposedly "[not] better argument" made specific reference to relevant specific guidance in
WP:BLP,
WP:SPINOUT and
WP:CFORK? I'm just curious as to how you determined the pro-deletion argument was "better". Thanks. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
16:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- I'll take a shot at it.
WP:ATTACK is pretty clear that we should delete any "... Wikipedia article, page, template, category, redirect or image that was created primarily to disparage its subject.". If that page does primarily disparage its subject then it is to be deleted. The issues are A) does it do so and B) does that mean we can't ever have a "controversies" or "legal problems" spinout article? I'd say A) is a reasonable thing to claim but B) seems like a bad idea and stands starkly different than WP:BLP or other related policies which instead insist on quality sourcing. Thus I started a discussion at
WP:ATTACK.
Hobit (
talk)
17:48, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Thank you. Unless I missed it, no one arguing for deletion in the AfD (or arguing for endorsement here) referenced
WP:ATTACK, much less quoted from it, until now. I see the problem. A section within a BLP addressing well-sourced allegations about the person is fine, even encouraged at
WP:BLP#Public figures. But if the allegations grow, the section gets too big, and so the content is apt to be moved to a separate article, per
WP:SPINOUT. But then the resulting spinout article could be easily misconstrued (misconstrued because the purpose of a spinout of a section that is too big is not to disparage which is the defining characteristic of an
attack) to be an
attack article. Yes, I think this needs to be addressed at
WP:ATTACK; good call.
Is it fair to say that the supposedly "better argument" (for deletion) many refer to here implicitly relied on
WP:ATTACK. I don't see how such implicit reliance on policy makes for a quality argument, but whatever. That makes a little more sense. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
18:17, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Born2cycle, I see the problem with the article stemming from
Wikipedia:No_original_research#Synthesis_of_published_material_that_advances_a_position. The title, and the listing of allegations, implies that there is a long list of allegations. As this is negative, it immediately fires BLP alarms. The implication is also not one of a
Neutral point of view. Looking at the cached version, I see a list of sourced allegations, but no source for a list of allegations. Just because there are a lot of them, it doesn't mean that they should be grouped. For there to be a separate article on all the allegations, there needs to be sources of independent, reputable,
secondary source material about the allegations collectively. Even then, due to the subject being a living person, great care needs to be taken to ensure that the Wikipedia article doesn't even imply anything not explicitly stated in independent reputable sources. --
SmokeyJoe (
talk)
20:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse. There's probably enough legitimate sourcing out there to write a neutrally framed article on the general controversy, but this one was just awful, particularly for the bloating of the number of "allegations" by treating related, repetitious charges as independent and by giving lengthy, detailed treatment to charges that appear to have been convincingly debunked. The notion of presenting this material as a list was inconsistent with the sort of responsible editing that WP:BLP requires.
Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (
talk)
19:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Now, that's a good, valid and persuasive point, finally, though even so, I don't think that any of the allegations have been been debunked at all, much less convincingly. As far as I know, no reliable sources treat any of these allegations as being debunked (though of course Armstrong's lawyers and associates do). I am curious about what you think debunked any of them, though of course that's off topic here. Anyway, thanks. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
19:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse close. The first sentence of the article starts "Although Lance Armstrong has never been found guilty...". Obviously a BLP nightmare will follow. --
Mkativerata (
talk)
01:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- So seriously... which part of the article was an intractable BLP violation? You're reaching beyond what Black Kite said in his closing, and I'd really like to see some of the "it's obviously a BLP problem" camp actually substantiate their opinion by demonstrating how specific parts of the article run afoul of the actual BLP policy. Obviously, it's a violation of many people's notional BLP policies, but that's a separate matter.
Jclemens (
talk)
01:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse Our policy on BLP requires us to cover negative aspects. The foundation, in their statement regarding BLPs, put overly positive BLPs right next to libel in the list of serious problems facing BLP. That said, I believe that the closure was proper. The excessive detail present in this article represented an undue weight of coverage when the coverage of Armstrong was taken as a whole. I do think that !votes claiming that this mostly well-sourced article could be deleted solely on BLP grounds should be discounted, as well as some of the fanciful claims like the person who cited WP:COATRACK. But even discounting those arguments, I think there was a compelling argument for deletion or merge. Since the closer explicitly left the possibility of merge open, and only chose deletion due to the lack of utility of the redirect, I think this was an appropriate decision.
Gigs (
talk)
02:58, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
Note - It is a shame, but there are now attempts to shove the entirety of this deleted article back into the main
Lance Armstrong one, i.e.
[1]. If it is too much to have this laundry list of allegations as an article, the same applies to any other article IMO. it is unfortunate that it was present in that article for so long in the past, but that's not a reason to retain it now.
Tarc (
talk)
16:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- As I read the above discussion, there seems to be quite a lot of support, even among those who do not support the individual article as a spinout, for de-merging the content. After all, it was there in the first place, uncontested by the editors of that article.
Jclemens (
talk)
16:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Keep deleted. The AFD closure is not
one that no reasonable closing admin could have made, and I think that is enough.
Stifle (
talk)
08:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse. Numerically this could reasonably be regarded as no consensus, but the main point madeby the closing admin - that "the arguments for not having this as a separate article are clearly made and I do not see that they are refuted by those supporting the article's retention" - appears to be backed up by the debate. Taking the BLP problems into account, this seems like a reasonable close. Just put some of it in the main article without violating
WP:UNDUE and everyone should be happy.
Alzarian16 (
talk)
10:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse. The reason given for deletion was undue weight given to unsubstantiated claims about Lance Armstrong, with the implications this has on
WP:BLP. The reasons given to keep did not address this at all, and instead pointed at how well the article was sourced. If notability were the issue, those would have been good arguments, but that was not what the debate was about. I can see no fault in Black Kite's closure of this one.
Sjakkalle
(Check!)
09:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse (as valid process). I personally would have decided the opposite but it's a close call, and anyway I'm not an admin. It's a plausible position, to say the least, that articles like this are not encyclopedic in conception, and in so being are BLP violations, even if most of pieces of information are, on their own terms, well sourced and relevant to the subject. This information can be added (in part) back to the main article, or form the basis of a better-conceived article focused more narrowly around the Armstrong doping scandal. -
Wikidemon (
talk)
10:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
reply
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