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This page has been mentioned by multiple media organizations: Ashe Schow (November 25, 2015). "Wikipedia founder advocates for updating policies following 'The Hunting Ground' controversy". Washington Examiner. Retrieved February 8, 2020. Another editor, whose username is BullRangifer, suggested Wikipedia not become "a kangaroo court or lynching" by rushing to ban accounts who break COI. BullRangifer suggested following seven steps to determine whether "The Hunting Ground" crew member should be banned and whether his edits should be removed. Some of the steps included how he handled questions related to his edits and whether he stuck to discussion pages to ask for edits rather than making them himself. Marcus Gilmer (October 3, 2018). "Wikipedia demotes Breitbart to fake news". Mashable. Retrieved October 5, 2018. Support. If anything, it's even more unreliable than the Daily Mail, as they at least use trained journalists, whereas Breitbart is a fringe propaganda organization which lets its extreme partisan bias get in the way of how it reports things, and whether it does so, just as Fox News does. It too should be deprecated, but let's start with Breitbart (and InfoWars). — BullRangifer 17:51, 8 September 2018 (UTC) Alexander Hall (August 13, 2020). "Report: Wikipedia Editors Censoring Evidence Supporting Michael Flynn". NewsBusters. Retrieved August 15, 2020. Liberal user Valjean responded by condemning this revelation as "conspiracy theories" and "part of a cover-up," even "when it comes from the now-sitting government of the USA." Valjean specified that "Nothing coming from Trump's Justice Department, FBI, CIA, anything, can be trusted." Breitbart alleged that Valjean, formerly under the name "BullRangifer" has been "previously involved in slanting articles about the Russia investigation."

Fascinating stuff! Well worth the read.

Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:25, 30 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Actually I think it is a bit more nuanced. I remember looking up some fringe theories years ago in Wikipedia and they were totally rubbish, not because they espoused the fringe theories but because anti-fringe editors made them unreadable with their crusade against them removing anything which they saw as possibly supportive so they did not even describe the theories properly. Looking again they properly describe what they are about and what people see in them as well as having the evidence against them. They are now far better and more informative artcles. NadVolum (talk) 23:19, 30 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This CNN report is mindblowing! This should get its own article and be mentioned in several others.

• The mystery of the missing binder: How a collection of raw Russian intelligence disappeared under Trump^[1]

The reference is fully formatted, with name (do NOT remove it!), for use as is.

<ref name="Herb_et_al_12/15/2023">((cite web | last1=Herb | first1=Jeremy | last2=Lillis | first2=Katie Bo | last3=Bertrand | first3=Natasha | last4=Perez | first4=Evan | last5=Cohen | first5=Zachary | title=The mystery of the missing binder: How a collection of raw Russian intelligence disappeared under Trump | website=[[CNN]] | date=December 15, 2023 | url=https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/politics/missing-russia-intelligence-trump-dg/ | access-date=December 15, 2023))</ref>

Pinging Soibangla, Andrevan, Muboshgu. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:04, 15 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Nice report. Love Natasha Bertrand Andre🚐 18:06, 15 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I saw that headline. Haven't read the article yet, but it made my reading list. Seems like a BFD but of course let's not rush into any edits, wait for some follow-up reporting, etc. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:15, 15 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Absolutely. This will get wide coverage. The CNN report is great, with pretty cool graphics that morph as one moves down through the article. The last known person to have the full, 10-inch thick, unredacted binder was Meadows, and I doubt he kept it. He would have given it to Trump, and he would use it for his own, and Putin's, benefit. Trump owes Putin a lot. He may do a repeat of how Manafort repaid his debts to Oleg Deripaska by sharing polling data. Trump has something much better. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:29, 15 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The binder contained raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election, sources tell CNN. What an odd coincidence. It sounds like this is relevant for the Crossfire Hurricane article, Russia 2016 interference article, and maybe the Mar-a-Lago search article. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:15, 15 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How odd! This touches on several articles here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:23, 15 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Here's some more to read from Marcy Wheeler: Alex Cannon and the Missing Russian Binder -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:33, 15 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Now The New York Times

• Material From Russia Investigation Went Missing as Trump Left Office^[2]

The reference is fully formatted, with name (do NOT remove it!), for use as is.

<ref name="Haberman_et_al_12/15/2023">((cite web | last=Haberman | first=Maggie | last2=Barnes | first2=Julian E. | last3=Savage | first3=Charlie | last4=Swan | first4=Jonathan | title=Material From Russia Investigation Went Missing as Trump Left Office | website=[[The New York Times]] | date=December 15, 2023 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/us/politics/trump-binder-classified-material-russia.html | access-date=December 15, 2023))</ref>

Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:31, 15 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Reuters

• Top-secret Russia intelligence missing since end of Trump term^[3]

<ref name="Landay_12/15/2023">((cite web |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/us/binder-with-top-secret-russia-intelligence-missing-since-end-trump-term-source-2023-12-15/ |title=Top-secret Russia intelligence missing since end of Trump term |last=Landay |first=Jonathan |date=December 15, 2023 |publisher=[[Reuters]] |access-date=December 16, 2023 ))</ref>

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Never forget you are a valuable editor and human being, and we all would miss you if something were to befall you. so take care of yourself. Andre🚐 02:09, 27 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks! Happy holidays to you, in spite of the recent tban. This too shall pass. There are lots of other topics worth working on. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:15, 27 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oh, you know there are. But I could use a little break. I've been on a tear. Hope your family and holidays are good. Andre🚐 02:18, 27 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We're okay. The only thing negative right now is our oldest dog is on her last legs. It's sad to see her slow down so much. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:24, 27 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I mistakenly put a template, L2B (link to body), in article space. Editing and champagne are a bad combo. See User:Cessaune/Templates/Lead to body link/doc -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 09:09, 1 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Created a legitimate alternate account and subpage to be used for demonstration purposes at pages related to Help:Userspace draft:

• User:UserHandle/Lipsum

That account name will not be used for normal editing. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Recent edits of yours to the page Burzynski Clinic has an edit summary that appears to be inadequate, inaccurate, or inappropriate. The summaries are helpful to people browsing an article's history, so it is important that you use edit summaries that accurately tell other editors what you did. Feel free to use the sandbox to make test edits.

The edit summaries of your reverts just now purport to restore quotes I removed but that is false. I didn't remove quotes (and I didn't add my own opinions either) at all with those edits, as you claim. You made the same false claim on my talk page. I urge you to correct it.

Restoring and calling my removal of BLP violating content vandalism will, or at least should, result in sanctions.

I removed BLP-violating statements that weren't quotes.

Please engage in the discussion I opened on the BLP noticeboard. RudolfoMD (talk) 05:59, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have commented there. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Please do not delete or alter legitimate talk page comments from other editors, as you did at Talk:Burzynski_Clinic. Such edits are disruptive, and may appear to other editors to be vandalism. If you would like to experiment, please use your sandbox. STOP. The Talk page disrupton -- removing active discussion, as you did there, is way the hell out of line. RudolfoMD (talk) 06:58, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I responded at the BLP thread. I mistakenly archived a couple of old threads you had commented in. I didn't notice that and will restore those threads. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 07:00, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Again, I didn't remove quotes at all with those edits, as you claim. You made the same false claim on my talk page. I urge you to correct it.

You have just twice accused me of edit warring. Diffs, please, showing I repeatedly override a contribution multiple times in short succession justifying the two warnings. But first, review EW and:

Please acknowledge:

1. [2] was not edit warring. It removed a copyright violation.
2. [3] wasn't a revert at all.
3. [4] wasn't a revert at all.
4. The above 2 edits removed statements that weren't quotes.
5. That leaves [5] which was a gnomish edit.

You have make a hell of a lot of false clams about my editing. You're one of the good guys (or at least you think you are) - right? So why resort to such tactics? RudolfoMD (talk) 07:44, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There have been a lot of edit conflicts and some communication breakdowns here. Let's try to reboot, okay? You have made lots of edits and my focus is on ONE edit. Stick to that one.

You "didn't remove quotes", and I didn't accuse you of doing so. You "altered" a quote in a manner that's deceptive. That was my point. Stick to that. Don't mention anything else. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 07:53, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dude, I already addressed whether that was "deceptive". You just made THREE edits in a row loudly pointing to it. Again, I've already addressed it. ¶ 2.

Since you're declining to provide diffs to show why you twice accused me of edit warring, and want to reboot, how 'bout you remove 'em?

And again You "altered" a quote is BS.
You refuse to acknowledge point 4, above. RudolfoMD (talk) 08:58, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

RudolfoMD, please use exact diffs. The link in your comment tells me the condition of the page, but not the exact edit:

Dude, I already addressed whether that was "deceptive".

In the future, provide exact diffs. I don't need to see the condition of the page. I need the diff of the exact edit. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:27, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You have many interesting things on your home page. I was pleased with your ordering recommendation for ((cite web)) arguments. I struggled with this for a long time - does it even make sense to have an order, if so what would that be, and why. My current best practice thinking is roughly what you have. There are good reasons to lead with last name. I think author-link should follow the last-first pairing not precede. Because it's displayed in the footnotes with last name first, it's easier to find the citation (when they are grouped together in a list at the end) by scanning for the first argument, which is the last name.

In terms of ref names, I agree with last name. I don't add dates unless there is disambiguation need ie. multiple cites by the same author. The name should be as simple and possible to fulfill its only purpose which is a unique identifier. BTW if you have not seen it, I recently came across this tool which is one the best, it renames ref-names. It's fun. User:Nardog/RefRenamer -- GreenC 17:53, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

GreenC, thanks for the comments. I am not an expert, and I'm always learning. I assume you found User:Valjean#A_basic_citation_template_I_like_to_use.

I use Yadkard. (It has recently begun to add a randomly generated number to the ref name, but I delete that.) It usually, but not perfectly every time, automatically follows the practice for scientific publications, IOW authors and date of publication. (My background is medical, so that's what I'm used to.) That way two different editors who use the same source and create a ref name will likely create the same ref name, even without consulting each other. With news journalists, it is common for them to have more than one article in the same publication in one day, so I have to get creative there and add a keyword from the title.

The important thing is to use unique ref name identifiers and avoid just numbers. That's from our MOS.

Feel free to provide illustrations/examples right here of how you'd like to see things done. I suspect I can learn a lot from you. I have already followed your suggestion and tweaked mine to place the author-link after the last-first pairing. In practice, I often don't use an author-link as the last-first pairing is sufficient. Maybe I should do it more often. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:18, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A recent example is the Sources subsection of Kennewick Man. Only for the last-first pairing, the rest are not ordered any particular way. This where I realized the value of |last= first, since it uses Harvard-style citations. Worth noting |access-date= and |quote= are most often found at the end of citations already by unwritten convention.

I would like to see a tool that re-orders automatically, it wouldn't be too difficult technically, only time to put it together. Of course everyone will want their own custom recipe, which would make the tool more complex. Nevertheless if every cite within an article followed the same ordering, it could make life easier on future editors. Not everyone will agree, but they don't have to use the tool, and if they don't think ordering matters, they also shouldn't care if someone changed it. I dunno, maybe it could create conflict. It could have a 'terms of use': rate control, back down if someone objects, etc

Yadkard looks very handy. I'll try it in future.

|author-link= is hard because it requires searching for names that might have multiple people, or most times do not exist. I suggested an automated solution recently Wikipedia:Bot_requests#author-link in the final comments. -- GreenC 22:50, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm a big fan of bots (but no clue how to make them) that do this type of cleanup. Harvard style is good. If you know how to make such a bot, go for it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:02, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is RudolfoMD. Thank you. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:37, 22 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User:Valjean/Bull in china closet

Around here, we have behavioral guidelines, and they are strictly enforced: Be civil, no personal attacks, and always assume good faith. You immediately violated all three, and edit warred on top of it. Bulls in China closets get executed. You may have some good points, but they never got heard because of your abominable behavior.

We use article talk pages for calm and civil discussion while we seek to reach a consensus on how to add, delete, or alter content. There is no rush, and we take time to do this. Anyone who tries to force their will on the community and treats Wikipedia like a battle ground will get blocked to prevent them from doing more damage and creating more heat than light. Now read and understand those sources I have linked. You cannot expect to be heard here until you understand and abide by them. - Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:20, 24 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

VJ, what are you going to do with such a thing? SPECIFICO talk 19:38, 24 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Okay, I get the hint I'll probably do nothing with it since there are already so many warning templates. I'll delete that redirect. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:23, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I just meant that if you inform a miscreant that they are abominable, there's likley to be a lengthy back and forth that ends with you getting a trip to ANI. At least when the message is short and sweet, the more experienced recipients take heed and fixit. SPECIFICO talk 13:16, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Context is important. He is now blocked. My comment was not the first interaction and was specific. As such, it is not appropriate as a general template, so I removed that invitation above. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:23, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

That's fine. I know the subjunctive mood is archaic, pretentious and terrible. 123957a (talk) 17:19, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

My bad edit can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons&diff=prev&oldid=1203307604 123957a (talk) 17:20, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Valjean If you must gain consensus on the talk page before any edit goes through, they should just full-protect the page instead of semi-protecting it, to reduce disruption and save editors' time. 123957a (talk) 18:23, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Consensus is not required for minor edits, so don't waste our time with dubious edits. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:49, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello. The picture in question is listed as an "own work" and contains no source. I could not find the original source of the picture on Google. Considering the seriousness of the topic and in accordance with the verifiability policy, the picture should go. StephenMacky1 (talk) 17:59, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

StephenMacky, unless there is doubt about it, we usually accept such images. We do this as the REQUIRED practice for images of people, and that, unlike this, is a BLP matter. You're being stricter for the picture of a railcar! I won't pursue this. It's on you. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:55, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Please explain why you are not allowing any important journalistic achievements by Natasha Bertrand - other journalists have extensive references to scoops and investigations . When an honest edit is made Valjean removes it , would appreciate explanation. 24.187.29.202 (talk) 16:46, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You're asking the wrong person. I did not revert your addition. It was Soibangla. I do see one problem with your edit. You did not properly source it. That is reason enough to delete it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:13, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Saving this here

User:Blanked, you're right when you say: "I don’t think that we should disregard blatant bias, whether we agree with it or not, especially in opinionated pieces." Per NPOV, we should be neutral by not removing that bias. We should document it and not whitewash it. That means the article will then read like biased content, and that's as it should be, as long as the bias is from sources and not from editors. The article about a person who is dishonest will give the impression that the person is dishonest because the weight of RS say so.

Editors are "neutral" when they are centered right under the point where most RS congregate, regardless of whether that is to the left or right of center. We do not "move" or "balance" content to the center to keep an article "neutral". That would be editorial, non-neutral, interference in what RS say. Maybe you should read my essay about this: NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content. At Wikipedia, "neutral" does not mean what you think it means. It really doesn't. It is not a middle position. It is not a position without bias. At Wikipedia, "neutral" means alignment with RS, including their biases. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:57, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).

Administrator changes Sdkb The Night Watch East718 Isabelle Belato Mzajac Staecker Stan Shebs Sugarfish Tamzin

Bureaucrat changes SilkTork

Guideline and policy news

• Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
• Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.

Technical news

• The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. (T353388)

Miscellaneous

• The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
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