Talk:Mazher Mahmood/Archive 1

message: This morning I spent 30 minutes fighting someone called “Paul adams” who insisted I not insert the picture, and was quite abusive in the message mechanism. Through persistence I (Suecom and 62.202.7.223) prevailed, and the picture survived. I’m relieved the maintainers have now locked the page, and I no longer have to keep putting the picture back.  User:62.202.7.223
WE WERE UNAWARE THAT THE COURT ORDER HAD BEEN MADE ALLOWING THE PHOTO TO BE PUBLISHED. BY PUBLISHING THE PHOTO YOU ARE HELPING PAEDOPHILES AND OTHER NASTY VILLAINS FROM BEING EXPOSED BY MAHMOOD!!! User:Paul adams
While I laud your desire for accuracy Paul Adams I must admit you sound like a psychophant. You provide scant sourcing for your claims. For instance you claim Mahmood exposes paedophiles or criminals as a rule. In my anecdotal experience his general targets are celebrities. People like Sven-Goran Eriksson who have private (ie off the record) conversations published. Or he entraps people by asking them to do illegal things for him (prostitution, buying coccaine) which if he were a police officer would be illegal. He is ethically bankrupt. This is journalism at its most crass and embarrassing and (frankly) is why reporters have such a bad name.
Publish his name, his picture and his address. Then he can get on to doing some real journalism.
Meanwhile, I must also congratulate you on frustrating User:62.202.7.223. While I disagree with you, it's always nice to see a racist ("tin-pot little kingdom") realize the world is bigger than just his opinion. 193.129.65.37 09:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Photograph of Mahmood

message: In response to Unityinjustice's comment, the information about Gashi and George Galloway is still available in the page's history. Once the page is unprotected, it should be relatively easy to revert the page to a good version from before the silly edit war between Paul adams, 62.202.7.223 and Suecom.
I agree that at the moment, it's ridiculous that the page asserts that Mahmood's identity is kept a close secret, without citing its sources, yet also contains a picture of this guy. How is that secret exactly? The article also fails to mention the fact that the recent publication by George Galloway is how Wikipedia came to have a picture of the guy in the first place. This is no small insignificant detail!
But I don't suggest a revert - I suggest a rewrite. Since the page was protected, the injunction preventing the publication of Mahmood's photo in England and Wales (which the article also previously mentioned but doesn't now) has been lifted. The picture can now be found on the RESPECT Coalition's web site. And the formatting is a bit sloppy. Squashy 18:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The photograph was printed in a national daily newspaper, The Morning Star, before any injunction had been sought, so it is already in the public domain anyway.  GrahamN 02:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. These are the most sensible comments on this page. 193.129.65.37 09:44, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  George Galloway 

message: Staging a bogus edit war in order to get a page locked and thus preventing newsworthy facts being added to an article probably isn't actually against any rules.  But it reflects extremely badly on everybody involved, to put it mildly.  Tsk.  GrahamN 01:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is the man writing in block capitals Mazher Mahmood's lawyer or an employee of News International? I am just curious, since it is unusual for anyone to defend the integrity of any journalist unless they have a personal stake. Also, Mazher Mahmood's offer of bribes to George Galloway sparked the current controversy. But apart from that, Galloway has had little to do with the "fake sheikh". So, the politician's integrity is not at stake here. Lastly, it would be nice if you WOULD STOP WRITING IN CAPITAL LETTERS. It does not make you more convincing, it looks like you are shouting.--Ahwaz 10:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would suggest it is most probably Mahmood himself. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get Galloway posting on here too? 193.129.65.37 10:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In the event that the shouter is Mazher Mahmood, Wikipedia does have a policy for dealing with grievances that people have with articles about themselves - after all, Wikipedia won't last long if it makes enemies of the people that editors write about, regardless of which jurisdiction they happen to live in. But my point is, you need to report the grievance. Simply getting wrapped up in an edit war on the article itself won't solve the problem. See Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from subject). Hope that helps. Squashy 07:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why no mention of the Galloway business in this article?

message: Thank you all for your contributions so far. Could editors please sign their comments on this talk page by adding four tildes ~~~~ at the end of their comments? It's possible to figure out who said what without you signing your comments, but signing makes it a lot easier - and I think it means the article will be unprotected a lot sooner too. The Wikipedia software will automatically turn your four tildes ~~~~ into your username and the date and time. Squashy 01:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Signing comments 

message: CHECK OUT THE HISTORY. GREEENSLADE HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS A RACIST. HE HAS WRITTEN NUMEROUS ARTICLES OVER THE YEARS SLAGGIND OFF MAHMOOD. THIS IS JUST A PERSONAL VENDETTA BY THE PROF. HE IS LYING WHEN HE SAYS HE SACKED MAHMOOD...19 YEARS AGO! 195.93.21.130 08:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (I'm afriad that as someone who voted for George in the last election I can assure you the ground swell of feeling in the Bethnal Green area is that he has badly damaged his reputation. For his reelection prospects he question is really has he damaged it more than recent scandals have damaged the Labour Party? 132.185.240.121 08:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IP 132.185.240.121: It is good to know that my BBC licence fee is paying BBC employees to criticise members of parliament on Wikipedia. But I wonder whether this is the best use of BBC resource. I will write to abuse@bbc.co.uk to find out.--210.211.234.50 10:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I appreciate those points - and, personally, I'm delighted that the guy has been outed. But remember that Wikipedia is not a soapbox. If you want a soapbox, try Speakers' Corner. Wikipedia is (or tries to be) an encyclopedia. Points made in articles don't need to be true as much as they need to be verifiable, so we need to stick to stuff that can be backed up by a reliable source. Even if you know something to be true - if it can't be verified, then it can't go in. If these people you mention have published articles, that's great. If other media have referred to those articles, that's even better. If they have been referred to in news stories, and not just opinion columns or blogs, then that's better still. But ideas which newspaper editors have in their heads but never actually publish won't do. Squashy 08:22, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further Responses:

message: The reason I set the article to "protected" status is that someone - I lost track of whom - was adding multiple instantiations of the photo to the article This was ridiculous; if it had only been done once, I would have simply reverted it and let it stand.
However, since it happened over and over again, and led to an edit war, I froze the article. DS 15:10, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate that, but clearly there were other issues that needed to be addressed too. It seems like they've gone off the boil now - so thanks for intervening. Squashy 23:15, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  My reasoning 

message: This guy sounds like just about the sleaziest reporter ever...if he was a cop, none of the charges would have stuck on entrapment. Reading this article (and other things about him) makes him seem morally and ethically bankrupt. Thank God someone exposed him. Yeesh. The Chief 14:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not only sleazy, but also a troll. "Paul Adams" has been dutifully removing Mazher Mahmood's picture from Wikipedia. The only person who has a problem with his picture being published is Mahmood himself. Is anyone going to do anything about trolling by "Paul Adams", or shall I just continue reverting his trolling?--210.211.234.145 05:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This man is a reporter??!?