Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Kriss Donald

message: My position is that the most of the material that is the subject of this mediation is tiny minority or is not “directly related” to the subject of the article. However, I will also detail sections of this material that I believe to be original research or quoted out of context. This does not change my view that the material should not be included on the basis of it being tiny minority. It may help you to revert the article back to Ldxar’s edit to see the citations to the material mentioned below.
As an issue becomes more mainstream the requirement for prominent adherents should logically change. I have repeatedly used the example of someone like Professor Ward Churchill whose opinions on the victims of 9/11 may constitute a significant minority within his own field, but in relation to the mainstream coverage of 9/11 are tiny minority. At best such opinions receive enough coverage to be considered “fringe”. 
My position has been somewhat misrepresented. I have repeatedly qualified my view on what constitutes a significant minority; however, this has been summarised by “NPOV=MPOV” which does not adequately explain my view. In issues to be mediated “Issue 1” the question posed is “Are views of reputable specialists (whose writings pass WP:Verifiability, WP:NOR and other criteria) ‘tiny minority’ (in the sense of requiring deletion from articles) if they go against mainstream political and media opinion?”
The above was never my position. I believe that a significant minority view voiced by prominent adherents can still go against the mainstream view, but have sufficient coverage to warrant inclusion. However, in this case there are two main adherents to the view that the killing was not racially motivated who I believe are not prominent (I will deal with the others below). Neil Davenport, who writes for an internet magazine called Spiked, which is not mainstream and clearly has a politically motivated editorial agenda. I should point out that the editor of Spiked objects to people being charged with racially motivated criminal offences whether they are guilty or not (he has expressed this view in relation to other racially motivated crimes in the UK). Also, I view the Neil Davenport article to be a tertiary source. He has written the article and based his conclusions on secondary sources (other newspaper articles). This is not an academic paper; it is an article based on other media reports (secondary sources).
The only mainstream article is from one BBC journalist, Bob Wylie. However, his article has only appeared on the BBC Scotland website. No other mainstream media report in the UK disputed the findings of the court. This includes many BBC reports, and other TV and print media organisations. This puts the Bob Wylie article into perspective. It does not appear to be a view held by a significant minority and the argument in the discussion that BBC journalists have an “institutional claim to authority” on any subject they report on is fanciful. 
As for “issue 2”, I contend that all material in the Kriss Donald article should be “directly related” to the case of his killing and not material “which falls to some extent within a particular specialism”. This would be the equivalent of going to every article on individual victims of suicide bombings in Israel or Sri Lanka and inserting the wider political views of “specialists” that any death resulting from suicide bombings cannot be classed as murder due to the political situations in those countries. It has been repeatedly asserted in the discussion that the Kriss Donald article only warrants inclusion in Wikipedia because it falls within some field related to racist studies. However, this is not the case. A brutal child murder covered by the mainstream media warrants inclusion on that basis alone.
As for original research, Kriss Donald’s mother at no point stated that the murder was not racially motivated. She made the statement that her son was gone because of gangs, while she was appealing for no retaliation attacks against the Asian community in Glasgow. She is not quoted in context and the conclusion drawn is inference, and therefore original research. Equally, “Pakistan Forum Scotland,” which is mentioned in a BBC article written two days after the murder took place is quoted as saying the killing was not racially motivated. However, this is again quoted out of context. This statement was made when everyone was still ignorant of the details of the crime and while the police investigation was just beginning. At this point the BBC and police were still speculating on the motivation for the crime. The BBC was even speculating that the murder was related to a love affair between Kriss Donald and an Asian girl.  
 
An article from an organisation called CARF (Campaign against racism and fascism) is also included. However, this dates from 1998 – six years before the killing took place – and could not possibly be sufficient to comment on the crime. I believe it is not directly related to the article in any case. I contend that taking any report (predating the killing by six years or not) that is not “directly related” to the killing and relating it to the killing in any way is original research.
--Guardian sickness 00:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Guardian sickness' position

message: I have already written two extensive descriptions of my position, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kriss_Donald#The_causes_of_the_dispute.3B_fresh_call_for_third_opinions
and previously, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kriss_Donald#A_third_opinion
To restate somewhat:  as an encyclopedia with a policy of NPOV, Wikipedia should include multiple viewpoints where these exist to any significant degree, and should not promote contested majority or mainstream views as "fact".  A viewpoint does not have to conform to the "mainstream", in the sense of opinions accepted by politicians, authority-figures and/or the mainstream media, to merit inclusion in any part of Wikipedia.  It has to meet criteria of verifiability, neutrality and non-originality; these criteria are far more inclusive than an insistence on “mainstream only” in the sense meant here.  I would maintain in particular that views widespread among specialists in an area of which a Wikipedia topic is a subject should be given coverage if at all possible.  Hence, if an article is about racism, then views widespread among specialists on racism should be referred to if at all relevant to the case, and comments reflecting specialist opinion should be given weight based on their position in the wider specialism.  GS in contrast maintains a position which I term “NPOV=MPOV”, claiming that neutrality amounts to taking as fact the position taken by the legal system and mainstream media.  I agree that these viewpoints should be included as viewpoints, but I do not think they should be presented in a way that portrays them as fact or as the only notable viewpoint on the issue.  
The alternative view that the killing was a (wrongly-targeted) gang-based retribution attack should be included, along with some kind of link to the broader issue of the context of supposed anti-white racism.  I also maintain that the claims made by the trial defence should be included somewhere in the article, and that the interest attracted from the far right is sufficiently notable for coverage (given that far-right interest was regularly mentioned in the mainstream media and may have partly framed the mainstream perspective).  
I have twice edited (and several times reverted) a section on motivations for the killing, which are based on material drawn from a number of sources all of which meet Wikipedia criteria for inclusion.  These include an investigative report by BBC journalist Bob Wylie, which is the most extensive and detailed investigative report I have seen on the case; an article by Neil Davenport in Spiked-Online – Davenport being a politics lecturer with a specialism in sociology/politics of race; a quote from the victim’s mother Angela Donald (see below); and the views of two anti-racist groups (CARF and Pakistan Forum Scotland), one on the broader context and one on the murder.  GS repeatedly blanks this material on the grounds that it is “off topic”, “tiny minority”, “not NPOV”, “original research”, or “biased” - his exact arguments changing over time.  The position I have eventually pinned him down to, is that he takes NPOV to mean MPOV “on mainstream issues”, with the result that he reads “tiny minority” expansively and “prominent adherents” very rigidly.  He claims that a “prominent adherent” has to be a political leader, senior editor or suchlike, and that specialism does not give prominence.  He states that Wylie, Davenport and anti-racist groups are insufficiently “prominent”, and that the viewpoint I am seeking to include is “tiny minority”.  I do not believe the perspective is “tiny minority”.  It is at worst “significant minority”, held by a number of prominent adherents and recognised in the mainstream media, and may even reflect majority opinion in the relevant specialism.
Hence:
Firstly, there are sufficient sources meeting Wikipedia standards to merit inclusion of the view that the killing was mainly gang-based;
Secondly, these views approximate to scientific point of view on the issue, thus bringing the article into line with racism and other articles;
Thirdly, the inclusion of these views is necessary to avoid bias.  
There are also a few subsidiary issues.  The first is that Guardian Sickness objects to what he takes to be an inference of Angela Donald’s comments, quoted in a mainstream media source, which clearly state adherence to a gang-based rather than a racism-based explanation and which have not been retracted.  In my view the rendering of the claim “"It doesn't matter to my family what colour these men are. Kriss is gone because of gangs, not just in Pollokshields but every area of our communities."”
as support for a gang-based rather than racism-based explanation is a reasonable paraphrase of the original.  In my most recent edit I simply left the quote with no qualification and GS still objected.
A second issue is regarding the scope of the article in terms of secondary impacts, effects etc of the case.  GS objects to my inclusion of material dealing with the broader context of gang violence, as well as declaring any issues regarding inversion and structural racism to be off-topic, but leaves in another section dealing with accusations that the police failed to take action against gangs in the area because of political correctness.  I would contend that either all of this material is off-topic or none of it is.  My own feeling is the latter, but I object especially to the inclusion of discussion of a right-wing perspective on Pollokshields gangs and simultaneous exclusion of an anti-racist perspective, an inconsistency which leads to bias.
Thirdly, there are other issues raised in the course of the discussion which I have partly conceded and tried to resolve.  For instance, I initially included a substantial discussion of the idea of inversion which was probably out-of-place here; I’ve now taken this out, but instead want to include a link to an article on inversion.  Some of the phrasing of my original edit was criticised as “reading like an essay” and as involving inferences which might qualify as original research (such as referring to an earlier attack on the perpetrators as a “racist attack”).  I realise my writing style is not always the best for Wikipedia and that my own edits may be more encyclopedic if rewritten, but I don’t think this is grounds for blanking significant quantities of verifiable, sourced material.  My argument is that the broad outlines of the section should remain, not necessarily that my particular way of collating the material should remain.
Fourthly, there’s a possible issue regarding “undue weight” because of the length of the section I wish to include; I feel this would be best resolved by GS or another critic expanding the explanation of the mainstream/official account.  Perspectives should speak for themselves and be treated equally in light of the verifiable evidence which can be provided for them.
 Ldxar1 11:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Ldxar1's position

message: NPOV requires inclusion of multiple perspectives where these exist to any significant degree.  The view that the Kriss Donald murder was gang-based rather than racist is at worst a significant minority view, not a tiny minority view.  In addition the murder should be seen as falling within a specialist field of racism studies within which this position is possibly majority opinion.  My edits provide sources and evidence for the view which meet Wikipedia criteria of verifiability etc.  A substantial section setting out the view that the killing was gang-based should be included in the article along with material setting out the mainstream media/court view.
-82.31.7.93 23:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Short version as requested

message: GS does not object to the section on Bashir Maan and the alleged gang crackdown which is about gangs in general and not Kriss Donald in particular.  If this is relevant then so is the CARF piece.
Inversion is not a neologism, it is used in the specialist literature which I do not think GS has any knowledge on; there are cited examples in the article on inversion.  The article on WP:neologism is guideline not policy, and does not say that neologisms should not be used, it basically restates WP:verifiability and WP:NOR.  Kriss Donald should link here as the killing may be an instance of inversion.
The accusation that a killing of a white victim by Asian attackers is racist is an example of a claim of reverse racism.  The accusation that the attackers tried to avenge an attack by white youths by carrying out a murder of a randomly selected white youth is an accusation of collective punishment.
-Ldxar1 06:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GS Item 2 discussion - Inversion