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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JzG (talk | contribs) at 10:02, 27 January 2007 (→[[Marsden-Donnelly harassment case]]: comment). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

< January 26 Deletion review archives: 2007 January January 28 >

27 January 2007

Marsden-Donnelly harassment case

Marsden-Donnelly harassment case (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|AfD)

I am sad to say this is back at Deletion Review for the second time:

  • November 17, 2006: Speedily deleted by User:JzG. The Rachel Marsden ArbCom case was open at that time.
  • November 22: Overturned at Deletion Review (discussion) and sent to AfD.
  • November 28: Arbcom case closed (Arbcom decision)
  • November 29: AfD closed as an overwhelming keep (discussion); article restored
  • December 1: Speedily deleted by User:SlimVirgin.
  • December 2: Arbcom clarification issued [1][2][3], indicating that Arbcom had not asked for the article to be deleted.

I have since tried to negotiate with SlimVirgin (by email) to have the article undeleted, but she has not agreed to do so.

Discussion on deletion has also taken place at: Talk:Marsden-Donnelly harassment case and Talk:Rachel Marsden/Archive2. I don't dare to summarize the discussion, however it should be noted that much of it comes from single-purpose accounts and sockpuppets. User:Stompin' Tom, who suggested the most recent speedy deletion, is a confirmed sockpuppet of a banned user. In my opinion, no basis in Wikipedia policy has been given for deletion.

A person familiar with Canadian news over the past ten years would not consider this to be a sub-article of Rachel Marsden, or vice-versa. Half an hour of research easily establishes that the case soars above any notability bar we have, by a factor of ten at least. See the cross-section of newspaper articles compiled at Talk:Rachel Marsden/Reliable Sources . Most of the items in numbers 106 to 299 deal directly with the case, and most of the rest make mention of it. The article should be expanded to discuss its far-reaching social impact, for which there is plenty of source material including a 1434 word article in the Phi Delta Kappan. Expanding the article would have the fortunate side effect of making it less focused on the individuals involved.

The energy spent putting this article through deletions and undeletions would have been much better spent on constructively discussing concerns on the Talk page. Kla'quot 01:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I want the old text back. (Doesn't everyone who brings a deleted article to DRV want the old text back??) It was a very well-sourced article on a complex case and it would take a lot of work to start it from scratch. I put a notice about this deletion review at Talk:Marsden-Donnelly harassment case, probably a minute or so after you looked for it. I don't think it's essential to mention it at Talk:Rachel Marsden and chose not to because I don't want to perpetuate the meme that one article is a sub-article or fork of the other, but since you asked, I will put a notice there. Kla'quot 02:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Could an admin please perform a history-only undeletion of this article so contributors 0can see what we are talking about? Kla'quot 02:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Isn't it astonishing that a case of "far-reaching social impact" has not been widely covered in the mainstream press or the sociology literature (article in PDK notwithstanding)? It seems to have created a very brief local stir. Keep deleted. Grace Note 02:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's been covered dozens of times by the mainstream press. Maybe less so in your country than in mine. You still haven't given a basis in Wikipedia policy to delete it. Kla'quot 02:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To give some indication of what utter nonsense Grace Note's "brief local stir" comment is, the Ottawa Citizen ran a two-part set of articles about the case, totalling 7438 words, in December 1999. This was two and a half years after the story broke. The distance between SFU and Ottawa is 5660km. Kla'quot 04:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I have. It contained unsourced information on living people. Thus, anyone stopping by should have, and apparently did, remove it. That's what WP:BLP is. -Amark moo! 02:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Amarkov, my reply was to Grace Note, not to you. You were the first person to vote Keep in the AfD [4] and nothing has been added to the article since then, so why did you change your mind? And what unsourced information are you talking about? The article was extremely well-referenced. Feel free to email me if it's too sensitive to repeat here. Kla'quot 02:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn Apart from being a significant news story in its own right, the Marsden-Donnelly harrassment case had national significance beyond the actions of the two main participants. Several Canadian universities re-evaluated their procedures for adjudicating sexual harrassment complaints in light of the decision, and there was something of a "chill" on the issue for a time. I do not believe the decision to delete this page was appropriate, and I have some reason to suspect that SlimVirgin's perspective on the matter may not conform precisely to the expected standards of neutrality. ([5], [6], [7], [8], [9]) CJCurrie 04:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep deleted. The ArbCom ruling allowed that any admin could delete the Marsden articles if there were BLP concerns, and I feel the concerns are very real in this case. She's arguably not notable enough for one article, let alone two. The first of the articles was created by a Canadian left-wing political activist as what appeared to be an attack page, one of a number of such pages on right-wing figures the editor didn't like. Since then, both articles have attracted a lot of trouble and very poor editing. There were blogs being used as sources, including, if I understood the ArbCom case correctly, a blog belonging to an admin who both edited the page and took admin action in relation to it; speculation about Marsden's sexuality; sly implications that she doesn't tell the truth about her education or professional life; people involved in the situation in real life editing the article; persistent sockpuppetry on both sides; and allegedly demonstrable damage to Marsden's career as a direct result of the articles. In fact, just about everything that should worry us BLP-wise has happened on one of the Marsden pages. Given her borderline notability, we should have at most one article about her, and we do at Rachel Marsden. SlimVirgin (talk) 08:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It all depends what you mean by non-trivial coverage, I think. There is certainly a lot of sensationalist coverage, as one would expect given that this is a politically active individual, but no real evidence of scholarly critical review of the case that I've seen. Can anyone cite reviews in the legal journals or use as precedent as case law? That would be non-trivial. We'd need to be sure of that before taking on the pain of maintaining an article which has been used as a hatchet job in the past - it seems the only peopel who really care about this article are Marsden's political opponents. Guy (Help!) 10:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pawn Game

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