Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Footnoted quotes

[edit] Statement by Norton

The quote function is a part of the all the citation templates. Quoting the actual text in the article aids the researcher and the fact checker, thats why the snippet view of Google is so popular, you can see the text in situ in the sentence that was used. If they appear to clutter the article in larger articles, we can always write a few lines of code that can suppress them from displaying, but still allow them to be seen in editing. We could also have the reader choose in preferences if they want them displayed or not. It allows many useful things for both the casual reader and for the serious researcher:

• 1) Allows for reconnection of broken links to a newspaper article. For example: if the title is: "Scientist killed", and the quote is "Today, John Bacon, a New Jersey scientist was killed when his car overturned". A Google search for the title may not find the article, its too general. Using the text string from the quote will find it. Broken links that can't be reconnected are usually deleted. Even if an external link for the citation is broken, and no other version of the newspaper article appears online, a fully-quoted reference can stand on its own.
• 2) It provides the actual information for fact checking the citation. It makes it easy to double check references that are already in place. You no longer have to have the attitude "trust me" it is in the book, or it is in the article. The actual in situ quote supporting the citation is displayed with the actual wording by the original author. The Wikipedia trend should be to make it easy to fact check an article, not harder. You shouldn't have to get a book from the library or purchase an article to find out the exact wording used by an author to see if it actually supports the text in the Wikipedia article.
• 3) It is not a copyright violation, the source is attributed, and the quote is usually a single sentence, well within the confines of "fair use". In the Tom Wolfe example, which has been deleted multiple times, the article is 4,254 words and my quote uses 43 of them, or 1%. Whole paragraphs can be used in citations with the blockquote parameter in the body of the article without being considered an abuse of fair use. The titles of the articles, which in newspapers can be longer than the quote, are not considered a violation of fair use.
• 4) Redspruce himself quotes text in some of his notes and references. See below where he writes "On the other hand, author Tom Wicker refers to Schine as 'Cohn's boyfriend'". It takes up a little less space, because he only encloses two words from the text in the quote, but the reader, including me, is still left to wonder what preceded 'Cohn's boyfriend'. "[He had wild animal sex all day and night as] Cohn's boyfriend" is very different from "[He was derided by his enemies as] Cohn's boyfriend". Which is it, if any? I looked up the ones I quoted because I wanted to see the exact wording. Others shouldn't have to repeat the effort to find out the exact, non-truncated, single-sentence quote.
• 5) It doesn't add to clutter, any more than inline citations do already. No one forces a reader to scroll down to the reference section in an article, any more than one is forced to read the endnotes in a book. In scholarly books they can be between 25-50% of a book's pages. Just a few years ago no citations were required in Wikipedia articles.

• Here is a good example of using quotes in citations and how they clear up what is in the article, and how it aids the researcher:

Schine and Cohn were rumored to have a sexual relationship, although there has never been any proof of this. More recently, some historians have concluded it was a friendship and that Schine was heterosexual.^{[1] [2]}

Well, what exactly do people have to say about whether Schine was gay or not, how strongly did they word it, and what words did they use. For instance the Tom Wolfe article up to a month ago required a paid subscription to the New York Times, but now is a free link, but you still can't just do a control-f and search for "gay" or "homosexual" because Wolfe doesn't use any of those words. You have to read the whole article to find the single sentence where Wolfe says: "But so far as Mr. Schine is concerned, there has never been the slightest evidence that he was anything but a good-looking kid who was having a helluva good time in a helluva good cause. In any event, the rumors were sizzling away ..." For a book you would have to get the book at a library, to look up the text. If the quote parameter is used and the exact wording for the sentence is known, it can be searched in Google Book.

6) Editors are skeptical of new information added to articles, so the best effort should be made to persuade them that the information is legitimate, and make that vetting process as easy as possible. For example:

• Here a skeptical editor reverts corrections in an article to dates of birth and death. If the references were clearer, it would be easier for the skeptical editor to see which information was correct. The dates that were deleted by the skeptic were the correct dates.
• Here again the skeptical editor reverts changes in an article to a correct school attended by the subject (the subject switched schools, so attended both) and labels it vandalism. More easy to read references, with the quoted text may persuade the editor that the information is indeed correct and not vandalism.
• Here a skeptical editor removes the subject years of birth and death, maiden name, and place of death. Again, to persuade the skeptical editor, easy to vet, fully quoted citations should be used to persuade them that the information is real and not vandalism. A good editor should always be skeptical, and that why the best references are complete, and easy to verify.
• Here the skeptical editor removed information on the subject's job, husband's name, and where they were buried. Again, if the references were clearer, and the quote function used to it's fullest, perhaps the skeptical editor would be persuaded that the information comes from a reliable source.
• Here a skeptical editor removes the names of the subject's children and other information involving their role in a Senate subcommittee. If the original editor had supplied better information, I am sure the deleter would have been less skeptical of the information and it would have remained. The quote function makes for a complete reference, and takes less effort to verify the facts. I only blame myself for the deletions for not providing more complete information, all new information should be treated with skepticism, and I applaud skeptical editors.
• Here a skeptical editor removes the names of two people involved in the Army-McCarthy Hearings that were mentioned in their obituaries in the New York Times. Again the burden is one me, the person adding the information, to persuade the skeptic that the infomation is factual and verifiable. Although I thought they were well referenced, I should have been even more clear in the sources and quotes so that the information could stay in the article. I should never overburden the fact checker, it should be as easy as possible to confirm with clickable links, and quoted information. As the skeptical fact checker points out, the burden is on the person adding the fact to the article, to show that is comes from a reliable source.

As RAN knows, I am the "skeptical editor" in all of the above cases. As RAN knows, in two of these I RVed technical changes made without comment by an anon editor. As RAN knows, in the other cases I was reverting for reasons that had nothing to do with skepticism. As RAN knows, in no case did "clarity of references" have anything to do with anything. RAN is playing games with the Arbitration Committee here. RedSpruce (talk) 15:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

If anyeditor, including myself, is reverting correct information and restoring back to an error, and the reason is not "clarity of references", then the remaining choices for deleting are: lack of research, or the editor is displaying article ownership. Anon is not equal to incorrect, there is no need for kneejerk deletions of material you didn't add to an article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Here are the references with the actual quotes

[edit] Past efforts at mediation

• ANI against RS
• RS ANI against Norton
• Second ANI against RS
• Third attempt at RS Norton mediation

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk • contribs)

Note: The first of these predates any interaction between myself and RAN. RedSpruce (talk) 20:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by User:KrakatoaKatie

I have had the same problem with Alansohn and Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ). In October 2007, I was asked, on my talk page, by User:Wildhartlivie to give an opinion about the use of long quotes in the cited references of Dan Antonioli, a stub article created by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ). This is the last version of the article prior to Wildhartlivie's addition of the copyvio template. I investigated, scoured the WP:RS and WP:CP talk archives for previous discussions, and spent an entire afternoon on it. In the end, I concluded that it is/was a copyright violation of four different websites, including one site with a strongly worded copyright statement. Since there were no clean revisions (and the paragraphs/quotes in the cited references were longer than the article itself), I made a case for deletion under WP:CSD#G12 as a blatant copyright violation. I had no objections to recreation of a new article in original prose, and I probably should have made that clear.

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) and Alansohn disagreed, as did Woohookitty. I was not very experienced or assertive as an admin, and I was intimidated, quite frankly, by the in-your-face, long-winded approach I faced on that talk page. When Woohookitty voiced her opinion, I dropped the issue, and the article remained as it was. The quotes in the references have been shortened somewhat in the current version of the article.

I think Alansohn's allegations about RedSpruce are intended to draw attention away from the core of this request, which is the use of long quoted statements or even paragraphs in cited references and the actions of two editors who almost always act as one. They use a tag team approach to buttress each other's arguments, introduce irrelevant subjects or fallacies into discussions, and bully other editors. I feel there are user conduct and encyclopedia content issues here that ArbCom should investigate. Thanks. KrakatoaKatie 21:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by User:Wildhartlivie

I am commenting mostly to reinforce that in my view, this is not an issue of attempts at ownership of an article, or articles. The practice under discussion here is pervasive with User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), and has been at issue in the past. The question of the appropriateness of use of the quote function and how this user has been utilizing it has been at issue well beyond the ones under discussion. As noted by KrakatoaKatie above regarding the Dan Antonioli article, large blocks of quotes were used in the absence of them being incorporated into articles. At no time during the Antonioli discussion was any attempt made by the author to incorporate and expand the article with the use of those sources. This particular article had been under question for deletion and my involvement came from supporting the retention of the article, with the caveat that it needed a LOT of work, and in trying to urge its expansion, was met with the lack of response and the uptake of the argument by Alansohn, the same circumstances indicated by RedSpruce above. One argument at the time from User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) was that it was preserving the quote in situ, to which I counter argued that inserting a block of text via copy and paste was not in situ preservation at all, and there were archive options available to be used when sources were in danger of being lost online. What I have seen is often copy and pasting of the opening paragraphs from, for example, New York Times archives. That particular method links us to a page at the Times website that purchase is required to access the rest of the article, which may or may not contain the material actually being cited. I took it to WP:Citing sources, the entire discussion of which can be seen here. The overall consensus at that time was that this practice violated the intent of the use of the quote function, as was summarized on that page by User:John Broughton. That discussion was obviously ignored and rejected, which brings it to issue yet again, with the same issues. I truly believe a ruling by ArbCom is necessary in this case since efforts at resolution over a variety of articles with a variety of editors has been the case. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Note: Here is the article in question:

• Dan Antonioli
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan Antonioli

--Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by User:John Broughton

As noted, this issue was discussed in October 2007 at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 19#Quotes in references. My final comment in that section was: at this point Wildhartlivie, IvoShandor, Arnoutf, qp10qp, SallyScot, AndToToToo, CBM, Shirahadasha, and I have expressed opposition to the practice of putting chunks of text into footnotes, a practice that is not supported by any Wikipedia policy or guideline, and that is in no way the norm at Wikipedia. I think that's about as close to consensus as most discussions get, and I suggest that the practice stop. Wildhartlivie added one more comment to that section; then nothing happened until it was achived in January 2008. Given that the opposed practice has continued, this seems to me a clear case of defiance of consensus. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I find it telling that Mr. Norton's statement, at the moment, is to argue the merits of his approach to footnotes. I have seen these arguments before, and continue to find them unconvincing; he both overstates the advantages and fails to consider the disadvantages, which I consider more significant. But this arbitration case, of course, is not the place to debate the merits of such a change - the point is that Mr. Norton is unwilling to abide by the rules, which say that if one is unable to convince (the majority) of other editors of the merits of one's position, then it is unacceptable to continue on as if a negative consensus did not exist. Mr. Norton's editing is disruptive; his pattern of ignoring the opinions of other editors should be considered unacceptable. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)