Talk:Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident/Archive 3

Article name

In my opinion, I think the article's title is too long. It should be shortened. It sounds good and encyclopedic, but it's just too long. Can something be done about this? Thanks. Floaterfluss ^{(talk) (contribs)} 14:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

What do you suggest as an alternative? – Qxz 04:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Only one Seigenthaler has been involved in a Wikipedia controversy, so how about dropping the "Sr." part? Kind of like how King's College DNA controversy omits the "London" part of the college name. Hbdragon88 04:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. How about John Siegenthaler Wikipedia controversy? The title seems to be rather cumbersome at the minute. Lan3y 14:31, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds OK to me. List it on Wikipedia:Requested moves, as a more thorough consensus will be needed before moving this sort of page – Qxz 16:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Not short enough (not to mention that the name should be spelled correctly). The title should be simply Seigenthaler incident or Seigenthaler controversy, both of which have been used in a number of sources. I prefer "incident" as a more neutral title. But there's no need for Wikipedia in the title, it's unnecessary disambiguation because there is no other Seigenthaler incident the name could refer to, and it will be plenty obvious from the article that it's about Wikipedia. --Michael Snow 16:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and listed it as a requested move. As the article's introductory sentence, I would suggest, "In the history of Wikipedia, the Seigenthaler incident...." --Michael Snow 16:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME. In light of the recent essjay ordeal, I've seen the media make numerous reference to Seigenthaler controversy and within the Wikipedia community it is commonly called the Seigenthaler incident. Either name would be fine. 205.157.110.11 20:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support as above. No need to disambiguate until there is another one to disambiguate from. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

until there is another one, gawd I hope there won't be another. 205.157.110.11 01:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'd prefer Seigenthaler controversy. I don't think it's POV to claim that this was controversial, and "incident" seems too euphemistic in this case. The Essjay thing is at Essjay controversy. Recury 16:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Given that either of "Siegenthaler incident" and "Siegenthaler controversy" would be acceptable, I have gone for the title which is more common outside Wikipedia. Thus, John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy has been moved to Siegenthaler controversy. --Stemonitis 08:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Motive?

Does anyone know 'why' this Chase added bogus information? I can see that one might do such a thing out of boredom, but why Siegenthaler? And why that particular information? BillMasen 23:55, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Probably because he thought it was funny, i.e., for the lulz. Why him and not someone else? I have no idea. --Alexc3 ^(talk) 20:54, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Is Sieganthaler famous stateside? I had never heard of him before all this. BillMasen 23:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I hope we're not getting siegenthalered, err, nudged or hoaxed, into doing anything we don't wanna do. — Rickyrab | Talk 10:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think he probably picked someone that nobody wanted to read about for a while. It's not like he edited Adolf Hitler's page or anything. He picked his target just large enough to be funny but just small enough to go unnoticed. Now, personally, I think Wikipedia is flawless when it comes to the natural sciences, which are largely undisputed, especially in physics and mathematics. That's where Wikipedia shines, in my humble opinion, and that's where it's most helpful to me. For history and other subjective areas that are prone to interpretation, I'd usually rather conduct my own original research, but that's why people call me a "nerd." Plus, it's easy to spot bias if you've read enough articles, so I don't see the problem here except for sheep who believe everything they read. --kevinthenerd —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.189.170.72 (talk) 19:45, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

External link to article

The long article by Seigenthaler (Seigenthaler, John (4 December 2005). "Truth can be at risk in the world of the web". The Tennessean. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)) seems to be dead. Anyone else having this problem? Richard001 01:40, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite lead?

"The Seigenthaler controversy began when...."

This is probably a bad way to start an article. I suggest something like "The Seigenthaler controversy is a ...... regarding ......" or something of the sort. Regards, Daimanta (talk) 17:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the wording per the new title. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Much better, thanks! Regards, Daimanta (talk) 00:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

GA review

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

After having reviewed this article, I have found some pressing problems with the article. Some of the most important are:

1. The lead does not conform to WP:LEAD. Specfically, it must adequately summarize all the major points/headings made in the article, which it completely fails to do.
2. While it's not a requirement to have pictures for GA, I see no reason why one of Seigenthaler is not included, since there's a free one on the John Seigenthaler, Sr. page.
3. Citations are a HUGE problem with this article, especially since it falls under the aegis of WP:BLP, and its failure to properly attribute quotes and facts is almost ironic given the subject of the article. The "Hoax" section is entirely unreferenced, as is most of the "Detection and correction" section, the first paragraph of "Anonymous editor identified" (including a direct quotation) and another direct quotation in the third paragraph (direct quotes require direct cites), the entire "Seigenthaler's public reaction" section, bits and pieces (including direct quotes) of the "other reactions" section and bits of pieces of "Wikimedia foundation reaction"
4. Also, little bits and pieces, uncited ones, that make me wonder about neutrality or, at the very least, WP:OR, for example "This is possibly unintuitive, given the freedom with which content can enter Wikipedia in comparison to Britannica." (Other reactions)

Size-wise, it doesn't look like much, until one sees that it basically amounts to 75%+ of the article being uncited. Added to all of this is the fact that the article has not been very stable lately. There have been BLP concerns, including a change of the title, since this article was nominated. For these reasons, I am going to fail the article at this time. Thank you for your work thus far. Cheers, CP 07:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Request for comment on article title

For anyone responding, you can see a couple sections above where this has been discussed previously. --Michael Snow (talk) 18:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Title

I just now searched for "Seigenthaler" at Google, and this article comes up as the #2 hit. The title, though, does not really make me happy. "Seigenthaler controversy" suggests perhaps that there is some controvery about Siegenthaler himself. But the old title "John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy" makes it much more clear to the google searcher that the controversy is ours, not his. I would move it myself but there might have been a past discussion that would make it somehow clear why I am wrong.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. John254 02:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Great. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

And, by the way, I see now that there was a debate about about this title being too long. I don't really disagree with that. I am just suggesting that whatever title we end up with, it should make clear that the problem was with us, not with Seigenthaler. The poor man did nothing wrong, and someone abused Wikipedia in a way that was unpleasant for him.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

How about removing the word biography? It sounds a bit cliquish to me, after all as editors we all now about our biography policy but for your average non-involved reader the biography seems a bit irrelevant, surely enough to say it was the wikipedia controversy concerning Mr Seigenthaler, ie John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia controversy. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

If Wikipedia is the subject, maybe, taxonomically, we should be mentioned first in the title, i.e. Controversy over Wikipedia's biography of John Seigenthaler Sr. As far as length, English speakers often sacrifice clarity for brevity, but like the old joke about the post-apocalyptic archaeologist wondering "What's fallout? And why did it need shelter?" it's not always helpful to future understanding. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

It certainly distances any ambiguity more than ever re John Seigenthaler Sr. having any responsibility for this, yes. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've done the move. There are a couple protected double redirs that have no incoming links, except for December 2005, which I can't seem to edit properly (weird errors). -- Kendrick7^talk 19:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Why was this moved back to an overlong title, despite the previous objections? I can understand the concern with the title "Seigenthaler controversy" creating inappropriate implications about Seigenthaler himself - that's one reason why I suggested "Seigenthaler incident" in the original move discussion. As the other options are all problematic, I am going to move it there now. --Michael Snow (talk) 16:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The new title is completely undescriptive. This isn't a famous enough incident to be readily recognizble by such a shorthand. -- Kendrick7^talk 17:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

How would you rename Halloween documents? Article titles need to be sufficient for disambiguation and generally neutral. They do not need to contain every relevant detail. That's what the article itself is for. Meanwhile, when discussing an incident like this elsewhere, people can elaborate as necessary for a given context, and of course link to the article for more information. --Michael Snow (talk) 17:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably Microsoft Halloween documents leak. Article titles should hint at their contents, not be the minimum number of nouns we can string together to create a unique identifier. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting - four discrete word units. That's about the most I think would normally be reasonable for a title, unless something more is absolutely required to avoid confusion. Certainly more than six (depending on how you count) including two prepositions and a possessive is over the top. I don't really see the problem with either "Seigenthaler incident" or (aside from the less-than-neutral implications) "Seigenthaler controversy", both of which have seen a fair amount of use as a shorthand elsewhere. If not one of those, then I'd like to hear alternatives that preserve coherence while not simply dismissing the overlength issue. --Michael Snow (talk) 19:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a pressing need for such a pithy title spelled out in WP:NAME. Your title makes this article sound like an international incident (a la the U-2 incident) or a title of the next Robert Ludlum novel rather than a minor online kerfluffle and what the article is -- a description of a controversy over the Wikipedia biography of a certain John Seigenthaler Sr. But I'm happy for third opinions. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The general emphasis of common names is effectively a preference for shorter titles. The name is common enough to have gotten a number of uses in the press, even continuing well after the initial events, as a couple examples from The Register will attest. "Incident" is a handy way of identifying an event without imposing value judgments - very much Wikipedia style, in fact - so why you think the term has such strong connotations is not clear to me. Anyway, I've put a request for comment below. --Michael Snow (talk) 18:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Archive link

The archive links are broken at the moment. Shawnc (talk) 09:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Found and moved. --Michael Snow (talk) 21:15, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Not relevant enough?

Quoting the lead: "After the incident, Wikipedia took steps to prevent a recurrence, including barring unregistered users from creating new pages.[5]"

I can understand that this particular step was taken in the aftermath of the incident. However the initial problem was editing of an existing article. As far as I can tell, the step of barring unregistered users from creating new pages does nothing to prevent a recurrence of the incident.

If I've got this straight, the words "including barring unregistered users from creating new pages" are not relevant enough to be in the article lead.

Rather than be bold and delete the words, can I have feedback please? Wanderer57 (talk) 04:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

No, the problem with the Seigenthaler article existed when it was created, so measures dealing with page creation are definitely relevant. --Michael Snow (talk) 18:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. A followup point.

The first sentence of this article led me to believe that the problem was editing of a pre-existing article.

"the Seigenthaler incident refers to a series of events that began when, in May 2005, Brian Chase anonymously posted a hoax in the Wikipedia entry for John Seigenthaler, Sr."

Would it be accurate to say:

"Chase anonymously posted a hoax article in Wikipedia about John Seigenthaler, Sr."

Wanderer57 (talk) 19:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

That might be reasonable, it's a less contorted phrasing. --Michael Snow (talk) 20:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Why is this here?

can someone please explain to me why an article about this topic which doesn't seem of much relevance except in wikipedia's own history belongs in an encyclopedia? 82.37.50.162 (talk) 14:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The subject is not purely of internal interest, media coverage of Wikipedia regularly refers to this incident, which is one of a handful of watershed moments in the project's development. As such, I think it's appropriate to have an article that covers how that came about. --Michael Snow (talk) 18:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have articles about incidents on other non-digital projects that are covered by the media to such a minor degree. Claiming notability on this matter is a clear demonstration of the double-standards that drive Wikipedia. Dissent on this point is motivated by selection bias. Trickrick1985 (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:SELF aptly asserts that the material should be considered as if it were being referenced in printed form not on a website. If someone picked up an encyclopedia at Barnes & Nobles they would be surprised to find an entry about an incident with a non-profit project that has been referenced a handful of times. I think we should nominate this for deletion. See also WP:WAWI. Trickrick1985 (talk) 19:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

(changed indenting above) As explained at WP:SELF, we imagine ourselves writing a print encyclopedia so that what we write will still make sense when printed or when reproduced on external websites. For example, we write "this article" rather than "this website". Regarding Barnes & Nobles, yes you would be surprised to find this article in a print encyclopedia, but that's because print encyclopedias have to be more selective so they're not 100,000 pages long. Wikipedia is not paper and thus can accommodate articles that would not be included in a conventional encylopedia — provided they satisfy WP:OR and WP:V, as this article does. You are correct in noticing a relative deficiency in similar articles about non-digital projects, and are welcome to help rectify this. Regarding WP:WAWI, that section specifically mentions this article, under its former title of John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:06, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Other reactions

Interestingly, the words (not peer-reviewed) are somewhat conspicuously sticking out. Someone place a source on that. I have sufficient reason to believe that someone placed the words in as a bias, as were it important information it would not be in parantheses.

--Heero Kirashami (talk) 18:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe the words are correct. The Nature article was labelled as a "special report" and published in the "News" section of the journal which does not normally contain conventional peer-reviewed articles; the study was carried out by Nature journal itself and I can find no indication that it was ever peer-reviewed. I doubt we'd find a citation that explicitly stated that the report was not peer-reviewed, although we appropriately cite the article itself.

Given the enormous prestige of Nature journal, I think it's honest and appropriate to note that the study was not peer reviewed. I agree the present wording is awkward, though — feel free to tweak as you see fit. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Seigenthaler effect graph

Graph of Wikipedia page views during the second half of 2005, showing the Seigenthaler effect.

I have a few problems with the graph reproduced on the right, added to the article by Savidan:

1. "Seigenthaler effect" is not mentioned in the article, so it's not as clear as it could be what this means.
2. I assume the graph is meant to imply that the Seigenthaler incident greatly increased the popularity of Wikipedia. But I doubt the enormous peak in the graph is solely attributable to the Seigenthaler incident. Going by this article, the incident was most highly publicised from Dec 5 to Dec 9 – yet the graph shows Wikipedia's popularity greatly increasing from late December to mid January.
3. I'm nitpicking here, but ideally the graph should have more information on the y-axis. Did the page views really double from early December to mid January, as the graph seems to imply? Or is the zero of the y-axis actually far below the x-axis? Similarly, it would be nice to have the x-axis extended to see whether the increase in page views depicted was sustained, or whether page views returned to previous levels after the holiday period.

For now I'm removing the graph per point (2), but anyone should feel free to restore if they have more information or if I'm missing something. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Effect on page creation

See User:Dragons_flight/Log_analysis#New_articles.2C_new_users.2C_new_administrators -- if this incident really did cause the end of Wikipedia's article growth rate, then surely that itself is notable? 87.194.198.122 (talk) 22:13, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely — though the connection would need to be mentioned by a reliable source before it were included in this article. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Out of curiousity, if something I wrote is parroted in the press, does it become reliable?  :-) Dragons flight (talk) 05:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Bizarre page move

"Seigenthaler incident" didn't suggest to me that S did anything wrong, just as "Bhopal disaster" doesn't suggest to me that Bhopal did anything wrong. The new title ("Wikipedia biography controversy") suggests to me not the Seigenthaler incident (or whatever you want to call it) but instead what's exemplified by this. So I suggest reverting the name change. -- Hoary (talk) 16:52, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment – No preference either way, but I just checked most of this article's online cited sources and external links (there were a couple I couldn't access). There was one that used the term "Seigenthaler incident" (once): the CNET source Growing pains for Wikipedia. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 04:18, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's WP's biographies which became controversial, and not the man Siegenthaler, n'est-ce pas? BillMasen (talk) 12:14, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing the lack of peer review claim

Did Nature make that statement anywhere? 92.0.150.111 (talk) 21:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

See my comment above. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 04:54, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Was this really such a horrible, bad thing?

I mean, if I were in this guy's position I would have been offended by the accusation, no doubt about that. But reading this and the controversy it caused, you'd think there was some evil, sinister plot to destroy the man's reputation. When the hoax article was first made, was everyone suddenly whispering, "This guy killed the Kennedys"? No, they weren't. I think more people know about this Siegenthal Sr. because of this whole incident, and you could fill a phone book with the names of people suspected in those killings. Seignenthal was a Kennedy pallbearer, but LBJ was his successor, and he's more suspected in conspiracy theories. This was no "character assassination", it was an uncited source on Wikipedia, for Pete's sake! Not the end of the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.230.194.95 (talk) 08:40, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I know, if fact this article seems so farfetched that it could have been vandalized too, or made just to scare vandals away. Evrythn1outof8infity (talk) 00:35, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Right. But the point isn't the injury done to Siegenthaler, the point is it called Wikipedia's accuracy into question for the 1st time. Remember this was 2005. Many people hadn't heard of wikipedia. Many of those who had only had the vaguest idea about how it was produced, and believed the pollyannaish propaganda about how everything would always be fine despite the lack of oversight.

This incident blew that out of the water.BillMasen (talk) 07:36, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Link problems

The link "Wikipedia Watch" leads to the article about criticism of Wikipedia, and should be changed to the site I think it was discribing, http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/ 66.183.59.211 (talk) 05:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Simple error or nex lie?

"The scientific journal Nature published a study comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia and the Encyclopædia Britannica in 42 hard sciences related articles in December, 2005, in which Wikipedia was found to contain 4 serious errors and 162 factual errors, while the Encyclopædia Britannica also contained 4 serious errors but only 123 factual errors" - why didn't you inform, that several months ago Nature publishers acknowledged that their study was conducted in non-scientific manner and can't be considered true???? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.87.142.125 (talk) 11:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

I'm unsure why one would think an editorial survey could be conducted scientifically in the first place. So the fact it wasn't scientific isn't news. Did the Nature publishers also say it wasn't true, or is that your editorial? - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 00:44, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

While doing a minor cleanup of this article (re: fixing the {clarify} tag on the "Curry situation"), I read some of Nature's published rebuttals of EB's objections. Nature indeed used a Scientific Method of "blind" articles for review, i.e., the reviewers did not know whether they were looking at Wikipedia articles or Encyclopedia Britannica sources while reviewing for errors. — DennisDallas (talk) 10:19, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Footnote(s) and References separated

Back in March 2010, the "Other Reactions" section was flagged with a {clarification needed} tag. I was reading the Role of Jimmy Wales article, and it contained a link to this article, so I saw the tag.

While cleaning up the vagueness of the "Curry situation" reference in that section, I added an explanatory footnote. To keep the n.b. separate from citations (per WP:FOOT), I moved the citations to a new References section, and added the appropriate hypertext to the Notes section for notas benes.

One question, though: Is my use of "See Curry wikilink" in the footnote too much of a self-reference per WP:SELF? Or just self-explanatory?

Thanks for any input/feedback. — DennisDallas (talk) 10:49, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to clarify this, DennisDallas. However the Nature reference actually referred to an accusation that Curry had edited Wikipedia's article on Podcasting to remove references to competitors' work, rather than to the Creative Commons incident you linked. But I'm glad of your edit, as it made me realise that (a) our article was misquoting the Nature article, and (b) our article's use of "concluded" was too strong, given the Nature articles use of "suggests". I've fixed these problems and removed the reference to Curry, as the Nature article said it was referring to "several recent cases", and only gave the Curry incident as one example.

As for your question, providing a link is fine, but it's best not to use the term "wikilink" as it might not be applicable if this article is reproduced off-site or in print form. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the re-clarification (and the wiki-welcome on my TalkPage) about this section. The original "flagged" wikilink to the "Curry situation" only pointed to the entire Adam Curry article; and after digesting it, my only conclusion to draw was that it must have involved his successful Creative Commons suit over Flickr rights.

It's always nice to be able to read more than just an abstract of a quoted source (i.e., Nature reference) to get the full context.

— DennisDallas (talk) 08:37, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Something strange here

I remember how you can't believe anything from the web, especially when the infromation if about the website itself and seems fishey to the eye. I still cannot really believe they made such a big deal out of a random guy from somewhere around the world who put in a few random sentences on the web that lasted no more than a few months. Anyone else than this article is strange? Do you really believe people who should ususally be intrested in more important stuff would waste so much effort complaining about a random person who added some short random sentences on the web? Evrythn1outof8infity (talk) 00:34, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The significance is that the incident received a lot of publicity, and made people around the world question the accuracy of Wikipedia in general. See the Other reactions section. You can verify most of the information in this article by checking the cited sources, most of which are available online and linked in the Notes References section. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 04:11, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Reflecting new References section, per current version.— DennisDallas (talk) 08:47, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Quote of the offending diff

Should we really include the passage of text that got us in trouble in the first place? Everywhere else throughout the article, it's made clear many times over that he was never suspected, but then we have this one swatch of text that says he was. Naturally an alert reader would realize "oh this is what the problem was" but there exists the possibly that the quote could be taken out of context somehow (i.e. by a search engine?). Dunno, I think that having the offending text just out there in article space there is sort of throwing caution to the wind, especially since it's technically a BLP. I think we should probably remove it, because if anyone is really into Wikipedia history enough that they really want an exact quote of the article, they can go dig it up from the page history. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 16:26, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

While the question is quite dated, it does reserve a response. The objectionable content is noteworthy for the gravity of the claims against the individual and potential harm that could occur were that to become mainstream belief, regardless of its lack of truthfulness. I suggest you look up Lynching in the United States.Wzrd1 (talk) 03:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Reference Link

Citation #4 in the Reference section is a broken link - Helm, Burt (December 14, 2005). "Wikipedia: A work in progress". BusinessWeek.. I am a new wiki editor and unsure how to fix it. Here is a good link if someone can replace the other one? http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-12-13/wikipedia-a-work-in-progress — Preceding unsigned comment added by Librarian abi (talk • contribs) 01:49, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much; I've fixed the link. Graham87 02:33, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident. DrKiernan (talk) 19:28, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia biography controversy → Seigenthaler incident – This title has been disputed in the past, though it's never been the subject of a formal RM. None other than Jimbo himself complained about the former title Siegenthaler controversy, which helped lead to the current title. Unfortunately, it's left us with a title that fails WP:PRECISE. Seigenthaler's isn't the only Wikipedia biography controversy. The Wikipedia navbox links to one regarding Chris Benoit, and presumably just about all U.S. Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia involve biographies; List of Wikipedia controversies includes others. Clearly the title will be more recognizable with Seigenthaler's name. I prefer Seigenthaler incident since it's already used and bolded in the lede. Seigenthaler hoax could work, or maybe Seigenthaler affair. I'm not even opposed to the former title of Seigenthaler controversy, and I'm open to an option that also includes "Wikipedia" in the title, to address some of those concerns from years ago. (n.b. Six years after Jimbo's comment above in #Title, this article is still the second Google hit for "Seigenthaler.") --BDD (talk) 00:11, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• Two more notes. First, I would ideally like to redirect the current title to List of Wikipedia controversies after updating incoming links. Second, there are a bunch of redirects to this page, some of which could work as a new title. --BDD (talk) 00:16, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Support Seigenthaler Wikipedia controversy or something more specific than the proposed title, which I do support in principle. But the proposed title is also too imprecise. I'm sure Seigenthaler had lots of incidents in his life. Red Slash 02:13, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Support in that the current title doesn't describe the topic. Would something like Vandalism of John Seigenthaler's Wikipedia biography ever fly? That's what this is really about; although I suppose the "controversy" that came of it is equally arguable. - I'm not that crazy (talk) 02:33, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• What about Seigenthaler biography incident? That satisfies WP:PRECISE, and including "biography" clarifies that this was no fault of the man himself, addressing Jimbo's concern. "Incident" seems preferable to "controversy", as the latter suggests some kind of disagreement between opposing sides (example definition). Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 03:24, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• I think Wikipedia biography on Seigenthaler controversy or Wikipedia's Seigenthaler biography controversy might work. I think it should be clear the controversy was at Wikipedia and on his biography here rather than anything else. He seems innocent in all this. Sportfan5000 (talk) 04:33, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose anything that doesn't include "Wikipedia" - agree with the sentiment behind the RM as it relates to the secondary problem, WP:AT/WP:DAB, but the main issue here is WP:BLP not WP:DAB, i.e. it needs to be 101% clear that this was a problem with Wikipedia not a problem with the victim, we can't have the proposed title for the same reason we do have Dick Cheney hunting incident, and do not [name of hunter Dick Cheney shot incident]. Seigenthaler was shot by Wikipedia, not Seigenthaler accidentally shot someone. Of the above Vandalism of John Seigenthaler's Wikipedia biography seems to me to be nearest to the spirit of what we should be aiming for here. The only slight problem is it wasn't technically vandalism of an existing biography Wikipedia hoax creation of John Seigenthaler biography, Wikipedia editor hoax against John Seigenthaler would be more accurate. But very strongly oppose anything that could in anyway be read as suggesting there was any actual involvement by John Seigenthaler other than being attacked. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:09, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose anything that doesn't include "Wikipedia" - per the arguments put forward by In ictu oculi, above. At the same time I am persuaded that since this is still the #2 hit in Google for his name all these years later, it does him no additional harm to have his name in the title. I'd be happy if we combined two prior suggestions and used Sigenthaler Wikipedia biography incident. I prefer incident to "controversy" because controversy would suggest that there were two sides in contention, but that's not really what happened.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:20, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• I agree that there should be a move, and I agree with In ictu oculi and Jimbo Wales that "Wikipedia" must be part of the article title. I would favor Wikipedia editor's Seigenthaler hoax as shorter than Wikipedia editor hoax against John Seigenthaler. Failing that, Wikipedia's Seigenthaler biography incident would do. The former makes it clear that this was a hoax committed by a single Wikipedia editor. DES ^(talk) 16:23, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• I'm pleased with the feedback so far, and I pity the closer who has to make sense of this very non-linear RM. I really like Jimbo's Seigenthaler Wikipedia biography incident, which hits all of the important points without getting too wordy. --BDD (talk) 17:22, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Support vanilla Seigenthaler Incident, I'm not really convinced that title implies it was Seigenthaler's fault or violates BLP... that said, "Seigenthaler Wikipedia biography incident" is still an improvement over the current title, and I would support that as well over the current title. I still mildly prefer leaving off the extra words for concision's sake, but it isn't a big deal to include them. SnowFire (talk) 21:51, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Support inclusion of Seigenthaler's name. "Seigenthaler Wikipedia biography incident" is clunky but is probably best. Coretheapple (talk) 05:33, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
• Support change to Sigenthaler Wikipedia biography incident The current name is nebulous and gives the impression it is part of the Manual of Style. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:56, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose current proposal, Support change to Wikipedia Sigenthaler biography incident or similar. While I take the point that putting Wikipedia first might lead to confusion with the MOS or Wikipedia project pages, I think that fronting Sigenthaler is even worse, as the incident is primarily about Wikipedia not about him, and most readers have no idea that the MOS and project pages even exist. But those are minor considerations, either variety is better than the current name. Andrewa (talk) 19:00, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Protected edit request on 6 February 2014

Please replace existing source in its entirety with the following:
#REDIRECT [[Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident]]
{{R to related topic}}
{{R fully protected}}
Reasons: (1) to fix double redirect caused by target page move; (2) to include R templates. Thanks. – Wdchk (talk) 04:13, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Done. I've used the {{redr}} template instead of the individual redirect templates as Paine Ellsworth tells me that is the preferred way to do things. And he usually knows what he is talking about with redirects. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:53, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Introduction

All that reference to and the words of Jimmy Wales in the intro are too long, should better be shortened. --Why should I have a User Name? (talk) 11:10, 11 August 2014 (UTC)