Talk:Faith Freedom International

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Content Section[edit]

The section on the website's content lists several third-parties and is sourced entirely to FFI itself. This seems to be a violation of the verifiability policy. Specifically, it violates WP:ABOUTSELF where self-published sources may be used only when "the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim" and "it does not involve claims about third parties," among other requirements. Snuish (talk) 22:58, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Jeff5102's revert to older version of the article[edit]

User:Jeff5102 reverted to 02:25, 24 June 2020, undoing about 50 edits that occurred since then. Among other issues, the edit reintroduced:

  • content that belongs on the Ali Sina (activist) article.
  • content that has been moved to WikiIslam since it is out of scope here.
  • sources that have been deprecated/banned on WP:RSPSOURCES, such as Frontpage Magazine and Jihad Watch.
  • misrepresented sources, such as Ibn Warraq's book.
  • self-published sources, such as Edip Yuksel's book.
  • numerous sources that do not mention Faith Freedom at all.

How do you justify the revert? Snuish2 (talk) 19:01, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are reversing the rules. All those edits were done by anonymous users, without gaining consensus on the talk-page first. And as you can see, some attempts were made by long-term editors to restore content, but the anonymous editor deleted it anyway after that. That is not how Wikipedia works. Moreover, it is rather unethical to delete all the sources first, and then put a notability-tag on the article afterwards. Because of that, repairing it to the version of June was the best step to take. Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 08:27, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What you seem to be doing is restoring sources that, e.g., violate Wikipedia policies or that do not relate to FFI, claiming that notability is satisfied by those sources. Is that not "unethical," as you put it? Why is it that you have addressed absolutely none of the issues identified above with the sources and material?
Editors do not need to seek advance permission to make changes to articles and you're mischaracterizing the edit history of the article. The two "long-term editors" you identified in the edit history seemed to be reversing what they thought was vandalism, which clearly was not the case which is also why they did not make more than one attempt to revert those changes. In fact, they were also reversed by other long-term editors. Snuish2 (talk) 13:29, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's not difficult to see that your reversion back to June is problematic due to the sources you're re-inserting. Even MediaWiki is automatically tagging your edit with "use of deprecated (unreliable) source." Snuish2 (talk) 21:09, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Again, it is not me who as to make arguments for not changing the article, it is you who has to make elaborate arguments for changing the content of an article. To me, removing texts concerning Ali Sina and WikiIslam here is like removing content concerning Mark Zuckerberg and [Instagram]] from the Facebook-article, which is silly. As you can read in the discussions above, the use of deprecated sources is allowed when it is done by "using this as a source for anything except the most basic details about itself that you can't obtain from anywhere else," as which is done here. Meanwhile, you are right on one point: User:Drmies removed 539 bytes, after restoring 3,083 bytes. Therefore, I do not mind if we restore the article to [that version]. Can we agree on that? Best regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 09:44, 21 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"Again, it is not me who as to make arguments for not changing the article, it is you who has to make elaborate arguments for changing the content of an article." You are unequivocally incorrect. Here's what WP:BURDEN has to say: "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution." Each removal was supported by an edit summary in the edit history. Can you specify any problematic edits and the reason why it is problematic under Wikipedia policy? I've provided plenty of reasons why your reversion to June is wrong above. You have not responded to most of those issues, and the two responses I've quoted below are entirely inadequate.
"To me, removing texts concerning Ali Sina and WikiIslam here is like removing content concerning Mark Zuckerberg and [Instagram]] from the Facebook-article, which is silly." Facebook does not even contain a section on Instagram and only discusses the development of Instagram in relation to Facebook as appropriate (when the sources cited discuss Instagram in relation to Facebook). The same applies to Zuckerberg. We don't need this article to be a coatrack for other articles.
"As you can read in the discussions above, the use of deprecated sources is allowed when it is done by 'using this as a source for anything except the most basic details about itself that you can't obtain from anywhere else,' as which is done here." That's not at all relevant to this discussion. You are re-inserting multiple citations to Frontpage Magazine and Jihad Watch. How are either citations "about itself" when this is an article on FFI, a separate organization? I do not agree with your proposal to revert to 02:41, 11 July 2020‎. Snuish2 (talk) 14:09, 21 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Jeff5102, your claim, "removing texts concerning Ali Sina and WikiIslam here is like removing content concerning Mark Zuckerberg and [Instagram]] from the Facebook-article, which is silly", lacks something essential to any encyclopedic article: one would assume that content in a high-traffic article like Facebook, especially content about Zuckerberg etc., has secondary sources. You chose to leave that bit out of your statement. In particular, that section "Articles", that's really just linkspamming. There is no reason to include that content, and the only warrant you have is "notable authors"--but that they're notable doesn't mean we should link their articles and summarize them here. And looking at the rest, I wonder to which extent you take that requirement of secondary sourcing seriously. Drmies (talk) 22:00, 21 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Drmies, "Cyber-Islamophobia? The case of WikiIslam" is an excellent academic, secondary source on these matters. The sections "Articles" and "Debates" were inserted to show both the notability as the content of the site. As you can see, both the articles had references to it from at least two sources. The debates were sourced by the websites/books of the other person in the debate, just to establish that mr. Sina was not making things up. For the history how and why it was formed this way, I would like to refer to the lengthy discussions "Several problems and cleanup..." and
"WP:SELFPUB on internetsites and -debates" above. The consensus after those discussions were incorporated in the article, and stood for ten years. I might expect that this consensus is worth more than the opinion of the series of anonymous IP's from DuPage County, Illinois, that all of a sudden popped up last July. So, Drmies, please take a look at the 2010 discussions above, and the page's editing history and see what you think of it. Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 10:26, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
" The sections "Articles" and "Debates" were inserted to show both the notability as the content of the site"--one shows notability by having secondary sources. You're going for spamming, it seems to me. The WikiIslam section, I suppose part of that can stay--but it should be rewritten. For starts, it should be made clear what on earth it is and what its relation to the subject of the article is. Drmies (talk) 14:57, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'll help you. The WikiIslam page can help here--but next time, if you are going to make such drastic edits, please make sure the article improves from it. Drmies (talk) 15:01, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"Cyber-Islamophobia? The case of WikiIslam" does not mention Faith Freedom even once. I'm happy to share the article with you if you'd like to verify. These were the secondary sources used in the "articles" section:
Not only do sources like the Investigative Project have no reputation for reliability but multiple citations are to Jihad Watch and Frontpage Magazine, which are deprecated. Moreover, not a single one of them mentions Faith Freedom even once. Going through the Faith Freedom website and citing articles from individuals that have Wikipedia pages and then citing written material by the same authors outside of Faith Freedom smacks to me of original research (particularly WP:SYNTHESIS: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources"), since Wikipedia is still not citing a single reliable source that states something to the effect of "Faith Freedom International includes articles written by these individuals..." Snuish2 (talk) 15:04, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Drmies, I did not make drastic edits. I reverted the text to what it was for a few years, before someone else started a massive rewrite.
And for both of my partners in this dialogue: as User:SlimVirgin puts it above, the sites mentioned here should not be used as a source for anything except the most basic details about itself that you can't obtain from anywhere else. These sites are used solely to show that the text and author on FaithFreedom are the same as on secondary sites. I would not use an article of Richard Spencer for an article on Egypt. However, if Spencer himself is discussed, it is good to establish that his text on FFI is verified as his own by showing the same text on own website. The same goes for other writers, whose webites are regarded as "deprecated sources": if these links were not inserted, then we did not know if FFI was just making these articles up. That is why these references do not mention FFI: they were intended to show the texts of named authors on FFI were genuine. And as for the debates: as User:Oore stated above: Please do not restore this material until you've found secondary reliable sources supporting the material, as restoring it is also in violation of WP:BLP. Therefore, the book of Edip Yuksel was inserted as a reference; if mr. Yuksel himself states in his book that the content is genuine, then inserting the book prevents us from violating the WP:BLP-rule. These actions are completely in the spirit of what WP:WEB states:

Material about web content that does not qualify for a separate, stand-alone can be preserved by adding it into relevant articles if it:
* has the appropriate level of detail and significance for that article;
* avoids self-promotion; and
* includes information that can be verified through independent sources.

However, I do sense that recently, Wikipedia has become more rigidly in it's interpretation on what reliable sources are. If that is the case, I am ready to answer some questions on why it is written the way it is written, (short answer: 'not' for spamming reasons), but for the rest: please see if this contribution in this dialogue can help in further editing. Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 13:04, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that that section of WP:WEB even applies since we wouldn't have a separate article entitled Content of Faith Freedom International anyway, but how does that section avoid self-promotion when it attempts to associate better-known figures with FFI without any reliable sources saying the same? Also, this doesn't address the problem that the section is original research, so it doesn't meet the third bullet point you provided above regarding verifiability either. If FFI does actually meet WP:WEB criteria, we'll have no issue finding reliable sources that describe its content. Snuish2 (talk) 17:51, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am confused. Of every person mentioned in the article, whose articles were placed on FFI, there was an independent source (mostly from the person's own website) that established that this person took responsability for writing that article. I fail to see the problem: for example: Geert Wilders's article on FFI is identical with the same article on the website of his own party. For both, he is credited as the author. That passes the treshold regarding reliability for me on the authorship.
After all, when we look for example at the Red Table Talk-article, none of the mentioned episodes has any references to establish that those interviews really took place. The same goes for the claimed contributors for the Huffpost-article. There, the unpaid bloggers are mentioned, and only sourced by a link to the Huffpost-site itself. Although a secondary source would have been fine over there, that is just describing the content of the site. And that is fine, even without a separate Content of Huffpost-article. And likewise, that goes for FFI too.
What's more: concerning such a "Content of website X"-type of article: I could not find any of such articles on Wikipedia, so I am confused why you brought that up. Could you show me such an article, so I know what you are talking about?Jeff5102 (talk) 09:56, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I brought up the "Content of website x-type of article" because the portion of WP:WEB that you cited begins with "Material about web content that does not qualify for a separate, stand-alone [article]..." from Wikipedia:Notability_(web)#If_the_content_is_not_notable. I believe that portion of WP:WEB would apply to this discussion if, for example, we were considering merging or redirecting this entire article to another article.
At Red Table Talk, the individual episodes are not cited but I'm sure they could be. In other words, I'm sure there are reliable sources out there that could be used to support the material. At Huffpost, I'm not entirely sure that section passes muster. It does seem like a violation of WP:OR as it's currently written. However, WP:ABOUTSELF also states that "article must not be based primarily on such sources." On Huffpost, references to Huffpost articles themselves are not the majority of sources, whereas in this article such sources would be. Additionally, I'm not sure that WP:ABOUTSELF even applies to Huffpost since that section of the verifiability policy discusses "sources that are usually not reliable." Snuish2 (talk) 16:01, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry, but it is merely speculation of you that those episodes of Red Table Talk can be found elsewhere. I DID source the names of those authors on FFI by references to other sites that establish the authors.That made the debates-part and the articles-part better sourced than the parts on the Red Table Talk- and Huffpost-articles, yet still you removed them.
Moreover, WP:OR deals with "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." Like I wrote above: Geert Wilders's article on FFI is identical with the same article on the website of his own party. For both, he is credited as the author. Thus, we have a published source that states Wilders wrote it. And Wilders's own party-website can be trusted on the authorship of his articles, and thus is, for this matter, reliable. Yet still you state "it seems" that I violated the WP:OR rule, because apparently "no reliable, published sources exist" on the authorship of Wilders on those articles? That still confuses me.Jeff5102 (talk) 09:38, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Red Table Talk has received enormous media coverage. It's odd to think that those interviews could not be sourced.
If you don't believe that the content section was a violation of WP:OR generally or WP:SYNTH specifically, what would original research on an article regarding a website look like? We can also bring this question to the original research noticeboard (WP:ORN) and get additional thoughts. Snuish2 (talk) 18:07, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"Thus, we have a published source that states Wilders wrote it." Sure, but we don't have a reliable source saying something to the effect of "Faith Freedom includes articles posted by authors such as Geert Wilders." That's a clear violation of WP:SYNTH.
You'll notice that both The Million Dollar Homepage and 4chan, which are featured-level articles about websites, do not use milliondollarhomepage.com or 4chan.org as sources to describe the content of the websites in their respective articles. They use reliable secondary sources. Snuish2 (talk) 19:16, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, there are 2 points I would like to make:
1. It is a good idea to bring this to one of the noticeboards: the more people look at it, the better. Such a step might be time-consuming, and such a discussion might fade away without a proper solution and/or consensus, but at least experts may take a look at it, which is a positive thing.
2. I was unaware that the WikiIslam-article was recreated. I only knew it was deleted in 2014 for the fourth time, after two discussions. As such,the FFI-article seemed the best place to discuss that site. Now the article is recreated, we might include a subheader in the FFI-article, and a "main=article"-redirect, but I think we do not have to revert this section to the longer version. Jeff5102 (talk) 12:28, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. Would you like to start the discussion on the noticeboard? Snuish2 (talk) 20:05, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am somewhat concerned that you were unaware of the existence of the WikiIslam article. This was pointed out in an edit summary from July and was indicated above by me and by Drmies. If you did not take the time to review the edits closely, why did you make such drastic reverts and why did you expect me to justify what was already explained in edit summaries about the changes to the article? It seems that those reverts were done in a knee-jerk fashion. Snuish2 (talk) 16:15, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind bringong this to a noticeboard. Please give me some time for this. On your second point: I saw the WikiIslam-article earlier; that is why I stopped mentioning it after 21 November. That said: edit summaries are not meant to discuss huge rewrites. Suchh things shuld be discussed on the talk-pages, as we do do now.Jeff5102 (talk) 14:38, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of whether edit summaries are meant to discuss rewrites, one would think that you would at least review edits before reverting them (multiple times). This version of the page, which was how it appeared before you reverted, also contains a link to the WikiIslam article. Thanks for agreeing to bring this to the noticeboard. Snuish2 (talk) 16:45, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Jerusalem Post Magazine Piece[edit]

There are 2-3 sentences mentioning FFI in a piece from the Jerusalem Post. The piece is labeled "feature" and is a human-interest story, which are not reliable sources. WP:RSEDITORIAL states the following: "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. Human interest reporting is generally not as reliable as news reporting, and may not be subject to the same rigorous standards of fact-checking and accuracy (see junk food news)." Snuish2 (talk) 14:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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