Jimbo visits Russavia in his jail his English Wikipedia talk

[neved]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... _a_note.3F

Unusual edit -- did the New York Times change a story without a note?

I came across an edit on English Wikipedia article for Berkut which was done by Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs).[1] The article is basically just a quote from the New York Times, but when checking the referenced article,[2] I can't find the quote, nor even reference to what is asserted in the article. The linked article was snapshotted 3 times on 28 January 2014 by the Wayback Machine,[3] but again the quote is not contained in any of these snapshotted articles. The Kyiv Post does have a reference to the article,[4] but when one clicks on their link it goes to the article which doesn't contain the quote. I can also find no reference on the NY Times website to this article using varying quotes.

Whilst the case of Mykhailo Gavrylyuk, the Euromaidan protester who was made to stand outside naked, is true,[5] the case of Yury Verbytsky is less clear; there being no clear firm evidence that Berkut was involved in his kidnapping, torture and death.[6]

One could assume that the NYT pulled their article, for whatever reason. It is in instances such as this that webcitation.org can come in handy, but even then if an organisation pulls an article one can assume that there were factual errors that made the article untenable to keep in print, and our projects should follow the lead and pull information from our articles. But in this instance, the information is still sitting in the article at the time I write this.[7] I did raise this on IRC in #wikipedia-en but nothing was done with it.

Major international events such as the protests in Ukraine and the resultant coup/revolution and accession/annexation of Crimea to/into Russia often see English Wikipedia articles reflecting what is in English-language media at the time, and as one can see from Jimmy's edit this can turn editors into unwitting quasi-propagandists. One really should be careful in using media sources on such issues, because the information is due to change at the drop of a hat, and sometimes people will not see these changes but the information is left in our articles.

But what makes this situation odd is that the NYT will usually notate corrections in articles, but in this case they haven't. In fact, it looks like the entire article has changed, yet whilst keeping a URL indicating another article. This is odd. Could someone please ask Jimmy if he may have used webcitation.org or still has a copy of the article available on his local machine. Or the information should be removed at this stage from the article for failing verification. Russavia (talk) 12:17, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

"As negotiations went on between opposition leaders and the president of Ukraine, a video surfaced of Berkut riot police officers stripping a protester naked." is found in [8] with a meta-tag. (Use "view source" to defeat the paywall) Collect (talk) 12:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

There is also this entry at newsdiffs.org. Tarc (talk) 12:43, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
No, that's not it. You will notice that Jimmy's edit is a direct quote[9]. I have no doubt that Jimmy did see such an article, because the Kyiv Post linked to it. But this is odd indeed. Russavia (talk) 12:50, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Tarc, this gives some insight. But it would appear that an entire article has been removed from the NYT website without explanation. What would our projects do when information like this changes? Russavia (talk) 12:50, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

The other issue is the POV issue of what was inserted in the article by @Jimbo Wales: (but which could have been made by anyone). Using long quotes should be discouraged on this project, not least because of the possible copyright issue. In this instance, the quote presents a real POV issue, in that the death of Verbytsky is now linked to our article as being the responsibility of Berkut (which made me look this up to begin with). The NYT times itself does not make this connection. It basically states that Berkut did this thing to Person A, and that this thing happened to Person B without saying who did so. The Person B information in the article presents a POV issue in that our article is stating that Berkut is responsible for Verbytsky's death.

It is likely, given the short timeframe that the information was available on the NYT website, that Jimmy saw the article on the NYT website, copypasted it into the article without really doing any further research on the issue at it relates to what was being inserted into the article. Whilst there is ultimately nothing wrong with this, apart from possible copyright issues, and is done on a widespread basis across this project, editors should stay mindful of what I presented above by hot topics in the media. Russavia (talk) 15:13, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

There are no copyright issues with a two sentence quote from a source. I invite you to point me to any real legal authority of any kind which would suggest otherwise. The correct diff to look at to understand my edit is this one. Per BLP I removed an unsourced negative claim and then found a proper source. That the New York Times later silently changed their story is problematic, of course.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:26, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: I honestly can't immediately point you to any real legal authority which would suggest a copyright violation, and to be honest it's because I haven't actually looked, but it's best to err on the side of caution. I said "possible copyright issues" for this exact reason that you pointed out, except I wonder if WP makes excessive use of copyrighted materials as "fair use" from a single source across the project, whether a publisher might have a case against Wikipedia. But regardless....

All I can do, is point to Wikipedia policy and guidelines.

Wikipedia:Copyright violations states: "However, copying material without the permission of the copyright holder from sources that are not public domain or compatibly licensed (unless it's a brief quotation used in accordance with Wikipedia's non-free content policy and guideline) is likely to be a copyright violation."

Wikipedia:NFC#Text states: "Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea."

Your edit to the Berkut article neither illustrated a point, established context or attributed any point of view or idea, in either the letter or spirit of the NFC. What you inserted really should have been written without the need for a direct quote from the source. Whilst I didn't see the BLP issue that brought you to the article, and whilst removing BLP violations from our project is the right thing to do, I hope you can understand what I wrote above about becoming an unwitting quasi-propagandist in the process. If not, the quote from the New York Times is at Berkut_(special_police_force)#Specific_incidents which starts "Writing in Business Insider in February 2014, Harrison Jacobs noted: "The Berkut ... has had a long history of brutality, abuse, torture, and other measures in service of whatever political regime is in control of Ukraine." and which by inclusion in the quote directly links Berkut to the death of Verbytsky and is written as a matter of fact in this sense. (hence the POV issue).

A two sentence direct quote from the NYT whilst on the surface may not look like much, as you can see it presents other issues. I think you can now probably understand why using quotes should be used absolutely sparingly as part of regular prose in article, and only rely on non-free content as an absolute last-resort.

@Jimbo Wales:, but I seriously do thank you for putting the information in the article on Gavrylyuk, because it was an important moment in Euromaidan. Jimmy, I see the information is still in the article as inserted by yourself, so I have taken the liberty of collating some information on the Gavrylyuk incident and I make a suggestion to you to remove the New York Times quote in its entirety (the 27 Jan date is also wrong), and perhaps consider replacing it with this text (which I declare I have released into the public domain for reasons of copyright):

On 23 January 2014, protester and Zaporozhian Cossack, Mykhailo Gavrylyuk was arrested by Berkut officers.[1] In temperatures approaching -15°C, Gavrylyuk was beaten with blows to his head and torso, after which he was stripped naked and forced to the ground.[1][2] Whilst on the ground, Berkut officers put their feet on Gavrylyuk's head like an association football player would place their feet on a ball, and photographed themselves.[2] A video was later uploaded to Youtube, and in scenes reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal Berkut officers were shown to be posing for photographs with the naked Gavrylyuk.[3][4] In a further attempt to humiliate him, the Berkut offices forced Gavrylyuk to hold an ice-axe and attempted to make him proclaim "I love Berkut".[5] The video went viral and apart from making Gavrylyuk a symbol of Euromaidan, it also drew an apology from Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko.[2][5] Gavrylyuk revealed at a press conference after the incident that the Berkut officers also cut a couple of strands of the traditional Cossack forelocks (oseledets) from his head.[5]

You will also notice that I have used webcitation.org to snapshot the source, so that if the source material ever disappears it will still be available for easy verification by our readers. It adds a little extra time to editing, but it is well worth the effort as you can see.

Thanks for your reply here Jimmy, I appreciate it, and if you have any questions on the prose I've presented to you for insertion into the article, I'm happy to answer them for you. Russavia (talk) 20:06, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Strange I thought Russavia is still under his Eastern European topic ban that included his own talk.

[EricBarbour]

Interesting that Tiny King is willing to talk directly to the "banned user".

His talkpage access was pulled in January. Then returned on 14 March, so he could "prepare his defense".

[neved]

russavia is too indecent to get banned. He is just blocked.

[neved]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =605710125

If you'd like to see the article changed, you should change it yourself.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:09, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I wonder how russavia could do it if he's blocked and topic banned?

[The Joy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =605710125

If you'd like to see the article changed, you should change it yourself.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:09, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I wonder how russavia could do it if he's blocked and topic banned?

Maybe Jimbo was making a snarky jab at Russavia?

"You should change it yourself... oh, wait... YOU CAN'T because YOU'RE BLOCKED! BWAHAHAHAHA!"

[Alison]

And it's get out of jail time ....

[TungstenCarbide]

And it's get out of jail time ....

[Zoloft]

I vote aye.

[Mason]

I vote aye.

If nothing else, it takes some balls to post an unblock request so soon after trolling Jimbo's talk page en español.

[Zoloft]

I vote aye.

If nothing else, it takes some balls to post an unblock request so soon after trolling Jimbo's talk page en español.

I'm thinking he'll be a force for change. Lawful Evil.

[Hex]

I'm thinking he'll be a force for change. Lawful Evil.

He should join the Guild of Calamitous Editors.

[Coat of Many Colours]

And it's get out of jail time ....

I came across Pricasso myself for the first time searching for a Zoopla quote on Jimbo's Marylebone flat. Google is just wonderful. I'm so glad I seem to own most of it the last time I looked.

Renoir also took to painting with his dick in old age. Not a lot of people know that (but D. H. Lawrence did). Doubt R could have been arsed to do one of J though, all that designer stubble simply presenting just too much of a technical challenge to even the most accomplished grand old master pater.

[EricBarbour]

And it's get out of jail time ....

As noted in the other thread, it was forwarded to AN/I. Much squabble, bad man stayed b&d. (I guess...)

[JohnJ]

Maybe Jimbo was making a snarky jab at Russavia?

"You should change it yourself... oh, wait... YOU CAN'T because YOU'RE BLOCKED! BWAHAHAHAHA!"

OK, Jimmy, challenge accepted.