Talk:Jason Burke

message: Someone named Nobbynob keeps deleting stuff from this quotation, which is clearly sourced, and that appears to be the only contribution he has ever made to wikipedia.  Rather than continuing an eternal edit war over the issue, it should be discussed here.  I added the next sentence of the quote to give it more context, but the fact is this quote may not be in line with WP:BLP policies.  It is possibly that Nobbynob thinks he is enforcing the WP rule against potentially libelous claims, but it is my sense that Roger Hardy got that information from Burke's book itself.  I haven't read the book, so I can't speak to that, at least not yet.  If the claims cannot be sourced to the book, I agree the quote should be deleted.  In general, however, I think even if it can be, it should not be the main thing in this article, as it is now.  This is trivia, basically, and there should be a lot more notable information here -- like Burke's extremely influential theory of al-Qaeda as a notional rather than operational network (a theory that is frequently cited by counterterrorism experts and seems far more notable than his penchant for naked ping pong), or his extensive research into alleged Saddam/al-Qaeda ties -- he was instrumental in disproving the allegation that Ansar al-Islam constituted some kind of link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, in exposing key sources of the Bush Administration as now-notorious liars, and in substantiating the fact that Ansar al-Islam's alleged chemical weapon capability was laughable.  All of this is more notable than the "odd sniff" of cocaine with American troops.  There are many quotations, for example, about George W. Bush's well-known cocaine use - and it was far more than the "odd sniff" - yet there is not a word about his cocaine habit in the George W. Bush article.  Not one word.  In my estimation, Bush's coke use is far more notable than Burke's -- it was even a factor discussed during the 2000 election, and numerous reliable news sources published commentary about it -- yet it isn't even mentioned there.  If it is to be mentioned at all here, it should not be front and center of the article like it is now (taking up fully one third of the article!)--csloat 20:56, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Quoting a reputable source does not get you off the hook when you have strong reason to believe the source is wrong.  Please read WP:BLP (and you might want to read up on defamation laws if you're really interested in the legal issues at stake here -- repeating false rumors about criminal activity is one of the classic instances of actionable libel).  But I'm not as concerned about the legal issues; for me the problems here are accuracy and notability.  If there is nothing in Burke's book that substantiates the cocaine claim, where the hell did Hardy get it from?  If there is something in the book that substantiates it, quote the book directly.  If you didn't read the book yourself to find out, why are you so insistent on including second- or third-hand gossip from a book review?  Take some time, read the book, and then put in the quote if it exists.  In terms of notability, I don't see how any of it is notable.  You say the point is to talk about "the all round person he was, not to do with any drug use" -- if so, why keep the incendiary drug abuse part in the quote?  I also don't see why it is relevant that he plays ping pong naked or that he rides a motorcycle or listens to funk.  Do we have such information about other reporters?  I don't see anything about the vehicle Dan Rather drives or how much he drinks/smokes/etc.  As I said above, even the George W. Bush article has no mention of drugs, yet it is well known that there was a huge controversy about his notorious coke addiction.  Why should one rumor of "the odd sniff" be placed in here, when we have some evidence that Burke claims it is false?--csloat 20:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Let me get this straight.  You're saying that Roger Hardy, who has never met nor interviewed Burke, is a better source of information about Burke's personal habits (and specifically about criminal activity) than Burke himself?  That a sensational and patently libelous (yet otherwise entirely non-notable) claim about coke-sniffing and naked carrying on, that is unsourced in a book review, belongs in an encyclopedia entry?  Again, if you find it in Burke's book, let's see it, but my sense is that neither of you has even bothered to read the book.  Comments about Hardy's journalism are beside the point - this is a book review, not an investigation.  Call Hardy yourself and ask him where the coke sniffing comment came from.  And the article being edited here is an encyclopedia entry, not a book review, so it is irrelevant whether gossip about criminal actions "helps people decide if they want to read the book."  As for Bush, many credible sources like the New Statesman wrote about his coke abuse, since it became an issue in the election.  There was a section on that article about it and it was removed as non-noteworthy.  I submit this one is far less noteworthy, as the only people making an issue out of it are on wikipedia.  And you are wrong that Hardy's claim is backed up by a second source; the other review mentions nothing about cocaine or nudity.  Look, I understand that coke-sniffing and table tennis and funk music are all part of this picture of him as a "regular guy," but I don't see how it is encyclopedic, and I do think it runs against specific rules in WP:BLP.  Not every single comment that happens to be published in a newspaper or magazine is encyclopedic, and this is certainly one that is not.--csloat 23:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: The issue has been resolved, sort of (I still think the other crap can go too and we should focus on substantive issues instead), so I won't belabor the point, but how do we know you are the genuine 'Reem Butt'?  We have no reason not to believe he is Jason Burke, and, as he said, he did dispute with the New Statesman.  Plenty of news articles appeared during the 2000 election about Bush and cocaine; it was a big issue and he had to address it publicly (even to say he would not address it).  Certainly it was far more notable than Burke on a bike listening to Betty Davis and playing tennis with hookers or whatever.--csloat 19:30, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  edit war over coke-sniffing naked ping-pong 

message: The foden quote looked accurate to me; I've restored it (and I copied and pasted directly from the Foden article in case there was a word or two changed since Kratosky declared the quote "inaccurate.")  I think it's a pretty accurate, although simplified, summary of one of Burke's main points in the book, and the way Kratosky chopped up the quote it really didn't make as much sense.  There was also no apparent reason to chop off the second half of the quote as Kratosky did.  Eventually, quotes directly from the book will be better here.--csloat 22:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Foden quote

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