Talk:Kerry and Kay Danes

message: The information contained in this article has been subjected to repeated manipulations by third parties not directly involved in the Danes case. Clearly such third parties wish to promote a view of the Danes that is unfavourable and contradictory to the strong support that the Australian Government provided in their case.(Rachavong (talk) 02:26, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: This article is still very POV. Words like "unlawful" in the lead, and which are not substantiated by the reference (which contains comments made before they were charged) are questionable. Who has officially declared the arrest unlawful? The article is in need of a major cleanup. Harry the Dog WOOF 07:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The majority of POV was the result of recent edits and has been reverted. Still needs to be some cleanup though. Wayne (talk) 09:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very POV 

message: According to the Lao Law... 
Article 117. Principle of International Cooperation in Criminal Proceedings
International cooperation in criminal proceedings between the competent organisation conducting criminal proceedings in the Lao PDR and competent organs of foreign countries shall comply with principles of respect for the independence, territorial sovereignty of the States, non-interference in the domestic affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and be consistent with the Constitution of Lao PDR and the fundamental principles of international law.
Article 45.            Circumstances Conducive to the Exemption of Penalties
Punishments shall be lifted in the following circumstances:
·      Death of the offender;
·      Expiry of the time limit for execution of the court’s decision;
·      Grant of pardon to the offender.
Kay and Kerry Danes (talk) 09:01, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the issue? JFHJr (㊟) 23:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues raised by subject 

message: I am posting here a reminder that all participants in this discussion should read our Biographies of Living Persons policy and remember that this policy, and the
underpinning ethos of human dignity which underlies it, take precedence over the policy on WP:COI.  I advise the subjects of the article, and all interested editors, to work
together thoughtfully to reach consensus here on the talk page before including any of the contested material back into the article.
Wikipedia entries should be the output of a process of thoughtful editorial judgment.  Merely appearing in a reliable source can be insufficient, particularly when those sources are
old, contested, tangential, and when we have good reasons to doubt them.  A simple objection from the subject of an article, too, can be insufficient.  But when there is a biographical
issue at stake, we should proceed slowly and with a love of truth in our hearts.  There is no deadline to finish the article; there is a deadline of NOW to make sure that it doesn't malign
the subjects unfairly in the least.
I read through the version which was here, before removing most of it temporarily.  It was badly written to the point that the reader could barely understand the story.  It was written in
such a way that the reader was led to believe or suspect the guilt of Kerry and Kay Danes before finally realizing how the story ended.  Wikipedia is not a suspense novel where the truth
is to be sprung on us in a dramatic fashion near the end - we need to know front and center the core facts.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:58, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biographies of living persons 

message: Nobody wants Wikipedia to repeat lies by a regime that only lets its own side be told.  (And I should note that even the U.S. has seen games played with gag orders and one-sided "leaking" by prosecutors)  But the bottom line is we need something to cite for each point you want to make if we're going to get all the facts out.  I would love to cite your beautifully written statement above.  But "somebody logged on our site and said she was Kay Danes" doesn't cut it - it's not an acceptable, verified mechanism for showing we've done an interview with the person we think we did.  Hoaxes do happen around here.  If you can arrange to have a published response which we can point to, even if it is only an official website that we know represents your own opinions that you could set up in a few hours, then we can at least start saying how you responded (though our WP:BLP policy prohibits using these to back negative statements about other persons).  Of course, actual news articles detailing the railroading is better.  Cutting back an article the way Jimbo Wales has done is a stopgap measure, but ultimately the best way (for us, with our encyclopedic objective, which admittedly is more interested in how Laos works than how you feel) to deal with false allegations that have been widely reported in the press is to go through them one by one, and present refuting sources that show they are false, until the situation is as clear as it can be. Wnt (talk) 14:52, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Case in point...the Danes have claimed torture, and I would imagine based on the typical conditions in some prisons (including those in the U.S.), the mere act of being imprisoned in such a place would be tantamount to torture, but the Loatian government isn't going to admit this issue, nor is their non-free press. We must have reliable secondary sources for our information. The fact that the Australian Foreign Minister intervened seems say alot about their innocence...--MONGO 19:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I urge against self-publication. WP:SECONDARY sources are preferred, especially regarding claims that might fall within WP:BLPSPS; it's not about truth, but reliability, verifiability, and neutral representation of sources. One archived source in support of the term "torture" includes the following, per its title, and per its references to "violent" treatment of the Danes in custody: ; there's also , though that information likely came from the subject herself. More commentary in reliable sources would, I believe, make the case for certain language so that the subject doesn't have to. JFHJr (㊟) 01:06, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I still think a self-published update on their status could be useful.  Remember that Wikipedia has all kinds of arcane and sometimes overbearingly interpreted rules about "WP:SYNTH" and "WP:COATRACK" (The second isn't even a rule but some editors use it very effectively to squash discussion of anything they don't want people to hear about).  We as editors can't just stuff a bunch of random references about Laos and torture and lack of judicial independence into an article based on our own personal feelings and guesswork.  However, we can say that "the Danes vehemently denied the prosecutors' allegations, citing X and Y and Z, calling attention to practices like A and B and C", so long as we have so much as a blog posting about the issue that we can use to say that we're following their argument and not making one up on our own. Wnt (talk) 04:12, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

text: This is a touchy matter since the Laotian Government isn't going to admit to torture and the Australian Government isn't going to outright say that happened either. I believe there is good cause here to have the article deleted, even though the Danes are very marginally notable, their notability isn't significant enough that the lack of an article on them (which will never likely be able to tell the true story) is going to hurt the pedia and our efforts to be all inclusive. I am strongly in favor of doing no harm in this particular situation.--MONGO 03:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Why do you think they are marginally notable? This was very big in Australia as shown by the government involvement and reporting. Why does WP:HARM apply? The article made it clear that the charges were false and that the Danes were innocent and poorly treated. Why do you think an article will never be able to tell the truth? Kay Danes disputed very few facts, many of which were minor and were corrected or can be corrected using Dane's book.  The main complaints were legal points. Wayne (talk) 00:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that there are different kinds of "harm" Wikipedia could consider.  If we think only of avoiding any unpleasantness, then we don't provide a resource for people who might be considering operations in Laos to use to get a feeling for what kinds of things to look out for, nor for activists to use when some current event comes up that they want to use for political reasons, etc.  We have rejected applying WP:HARM as policy in favor of neutral scholarship, but if we did apply it, we would need at least to use some imagination. Wnt (talk) 04:20, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please publish or at least self-publish your response 

message: I've just purchased Standing Ground by Kay Danes.  What else should I be reading to help me understand this case?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  What should I be reading? 

message: Please don't change the ip addresses in old signatures, or try to sign with some address other than your own. It's deceptive, it doesn't work, and it disrupts the talk page. Tom Harrison Talk 23:41, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Signatures

message: Substituted at 21:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment