Talk:École Polytechnique massacre/Archive 2

message: As I said yesterday I would do if Sue persisted in making unsupported edits and acting uncivil on the talk page, I have created a request for comment.  Any editor is welcome to respond. Dina 19:17, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Suemcp]]

message: You need to stop editing this article and its talk page and respond at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Suemcp.  If you do not stop editing this article and respond, I will protect it from editing.  This is not optional -- if you wish to continue working on Wikipedia, you must participate in the dispute resolution process.  Thanks. Dina 18:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Mediation Cabal is a group of volunteers and they say clearly at the top of the page that they have a backlog of 8-14 days. Dina 16:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No one altered you comments Sue.  If you click the history tab (which shows the history of this page) you will see that you were not logged in when you made your comments.  As a default, Wikipedia then signs them with you IP address -- 81.76.91.141.  Cheers. Dina 16:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Suemcp

message: Sue, 
Judging by your writings and the life story that you have revealed on these pages and on your home page, you are a mature woman who has had many interesting and sometimes difficult life experiences.  You can write and research well, and have novel and interesting ideas and reflections of life.  You have training in academic research, and have written and presented papers at conferences.  You therefore know the principles of how a researcher should investigate and seek to understand a subject.  There are two that are very critical here:
*A good researcher is able to maintain an emotional detachment from the subject
*A good researcher allows the results/interpretation to follow from the facts and does not choose the facts to suit the interpretation.
From what you have written I believe that you have personal reasons for identifying with this incident and with Marc Lepine.  Perhaps you feel that you were excluded from academia by feminists. I don't know.  But I do ask you to reflect whether emotion is clouding your researcher's judgment.
Secondly, you admit in your essay on your website that you were hampered in your researches because you live in England. Sources were difficult to obtain for obvious geographical reasons and you did your best with what you had. You came up with your interpretation and wrote your essays, in which Marc Lepine is a bright, fairly average guy with no big problems, apart from difficulties finding his place in a world where gender barriers were being increasingly broken down.
What has happened on these pages is that editors have found other sources that you did not know existed, and that contain evidence that some of the "facts" you counted on are possibly or even probably untrue.  This is understandably difficult for you after all the thinking and work you did.  But you must know that a good researcher does not ignore new information, find excuses not to believe it or (in this case) delete it.  A good researcher swears softly and then calmly looks at and incorporates the new evidence and revises the theory accordingly.  Unfortunately, you have been systematically removing any information that does not agree with your interpretation of the event.  You have deleted (and continue to delete) sourced information about childhood abuse and about lack of academic coursework, for example, because it doesn't fit in with your view of Lepine as being balanced, bright and thwarted.
You say that you are a researcher.  I appeal to you to put your researcher's hat on.   Then stand back and have a good long look at what has been happening here from that perspective.  Show us all that you are a good researcher and that you can roll with the punches when contradictory information appears.  Allow others to read all the information and come to their own decisions.
I am hoping that you have been able to read the above calmly and will take some time to think about it. After all it has taken me an hour to write!  I wish you only well. --Slp1 14:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: An Appeal to Sue

message: Here we go round and round again.  Outside voices are sought, Sue claims they are biased.  Requests for comment by outside voices are created, Sue claims that the other editors who weighed in are my personal "buddies" (for the record, they're not).  Sue, my challenge to you is to find one admin or editor in good standing who supports your point of view.  There are thousands of long-time Wikipedia editors.  Find one -- not a friend who's never edited before, not yourself cloaked under an anon IP (might not have been you, though the IP is also from London).  Find one.  Or I will find one who is less gentle with the block button than Atlant or myself and this discussion will be over, because it gets nowhere. Here's a list of every registered username on Wikipedia .  Here's a list of all active admins Wikipedia:List of administrators. Cheers. Dina 17:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I really don't have any power at all.  I think you misunderstand adminship.  I mostly spend my time editing articles about museums.  I'm sorry if somehow I've convinced you that I do have power, but quite honestly, I don't.  The request for comment was supposed to bring in other, disinterested editors to comment on the situation and perhaps make you understand that this is not a conflict between you and me.  It isn't personal, really.  I have no prior investment in this incident.  I was invited in to try and help solve it, as an administrator. I truly despair of ever making you understand this.  Perhaps your confusion is my fault, perhaps it is not. I defer to anyone else who enters this situation.  And, to a certain extent, throw up my hands.  Dina 23:19, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Challenge for Sue

message: I HAVE ADDED THE FOLLOWING pieces to the Massacre section which I hope people will discuss here rather than simply delete. I added them previously but no consensus had ever nee reached. I would be happy if Dina or one of the expert Wikitechologists would fix the ending of it. I don't know how to make it so that what follows does not all go into the reference section. Thanks very much. Suemcp 16:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Latest addition

message: *I have not made all the changes that you object with.  In fact, if you check the history (viewable by clicking the "history" tab at the top of the page, right next to "edit this page" I have made, comparably speaking, very few of them.  Please check the history to see which editor has made changes before addressing them or accusing them.  See WP:EDIT
*You seem to misunderstand what being an admin means. I am not an employee of wikipedia, nor do I weild any power within the organization.  I am a volunteer editor, just like yourself.  I was nominated to gain a few extra technical buttons (I can protect pages, delete them, view deleted page edits and block users) but I am as accountable for my use of them as any editor is accountable for their actions. See WP:ADMIN and the results of my request for adminship to understand more.  
*Furthermore, it is not the responsibility of admins to do the "technical stuff" so that other editors can just write whatever they like.  Yes, I have more experience with wikimarkup than you do, and yes, some of this experience is necessary for adminship.  And I do use what I know to fix things for other users.  But that's not my "job".  Editing, formatting and adding refs and other tags is the responsibility and the right of all editors.
*The request for comment process is one that any editor can participate in.  It is an oppurtunity for a formal, civil discussion about disagreements.  Editors signify that they agree with a certain interpretation of events by signing under them.  The editors who have signed off here Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Suemcp are not my friends.  I don't even know most of them.  They are simply editors who evaluated the evidence presented.  If you wish propose to a different point of view, the "response" area is there for you to do so.  If your arguments are convincing, the same editors who check those pages regularly (without any involvement in this article) will sign their names in support under your account.  They cannot do this if you do not write a response however.
*Merely mentioning that you have done something on the talk page is not the same as getting a consensus on the talk page and then making an edit.
*Lastly, Sue, please understand that you must read and absorb the following policies (that have been quoted to you several times before) WP:V, WP:RS WP:OR, WP:NPOV, and even more importantly, the two about editor behaviour WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL.  Your repeated failure to abide by these policies and guidelines will ultimately result in your inability to edit Wikipedia -- even if I, personally, dissapeared today.  Take my words seriously.  Read the linked pages and evaluate your own editing based on them.  They are not my creations and they are not up for debate. Dina 18:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As I've mentioned before, that entry reads badly because it seems to confuse the police investigation with a public inquiry. It also seems to be an POV slag against the women who "couldn't contain themselves." Why would they try and contain themselves? Because it was decided not to hold a public inquiry? Were they trying to contain themselves but couldn't because they're overly emotional women? That's what you imply, but it's not at all clear what that adds to the article. Also, it's not up to other editors, including Dina, to format your entries properly, or try and make them clear. I've already pointed out that you're probably missing a "/" in the closing ref tag (</ref>). I'd also like to point out that Dina hasn't exercised any of her superpowers here, and that any of us could have done any of the things she's done through all this. I'm reverting your edit if someone else hasn't already, and will point out that you're approaching the 3-revert rule limit. Bobanny 19:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: What's the matter? See WP:DICK if you really want to know. Bobanny 19:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Trying to clear up a couple of misunderstandings for Sue

message: :::I strongly disagree that Sue has been attempting to contribute a social interpretation to an otherwise individualistic explanation of events.  The lack of content that you mentioned is the result of haggling over individual and factual details, like was Francine Pelletier a reporter or journalist, was the coroner biased, did the police conduct an investigation, etc.  There are lots of published sources that either support or criticize how feminism has used this event, which should be reflected in the article.  But how could we conceivably discuss those controversial issues and hash out how they should be treated if we can’t even agree on the basic words?  I agree words are often not neutral, but this isn’t the place to overturn conventions.  We could have an extended debate on whether a word like rampage is appropriate. But that’s not our job.  There are objective criteria, however imperfect, for determining what those words are or at least for framing the discussion to get a consensus, not the preference of the editors.  If, for example, a significant number of verifiable mainstream sources consistently call it a massacre, then we should be able to call it a massacre without an arcane debate on whether or not it actually was one.  If it shouldn’t be called a massacre, this isn’t the place to overturn the conventional application of that word to this event.  
:::Conventions are not the same as truths, as you pointed out, but they are necessary on a practical level for any sort of collaboration.  The same principle applies to external links.  Better arguments could be made for including many of the hundreds of others that treat this issue, including some that call it a femicide or gendercide.  That Sue’s site is dedicated to this issue is irrelevant because many others not only have substantial content, but have, for good or bad, the level of notability that Sue’s site does not.  The only thing distinguishing it from a blog is its format.  The relevant point, however, is that there is already a guideline on external links that is the result of discussion and debate, like most Wikipedia conventions, which means we can treat it as resolved for our purposes. We should be able to instead focus on questions of content, not trying to re-invent the wheel.  Would Sue be happy with an external link to Vancouver Rape Relief?  Should we spend time debating it? There is a place for proposing guideline changes on Wikipedia, but this isn’t it.
:::What exactly is Sue’s social explanation? All I’ve seen is that creeping feminism is a bad thing.  That’s not an explanation, that’s an assertion.  Her analysis is circular: Marc Lepine hated feminists because of feminism.  Is there something intrinsic to feminism that doesn’t exist with other social justice movements?  Her argument seems to depend on the fact that there is, but it isn’t clear from her contributions what that may be.  Points she’s raised for debate are things like his intelligence, how diligent he was as a student, the courses he’s completed, whether he was crazy.  These may be necessary and relevant, but a social explanation they are not.  How about race/ethnicity and class? His father’s religion and beliefs – certainly there’s citable stuff on that in the post 9/11 world, and I’m sure more than one reader has taken offense that his father being a Muslim is singled out without any justification given.  How about the antifeminist backlash?  The U of T prof that compared feminists to the KKK in commemorating the anniversary?  I don’t see Sue attempting this kind of contextualization.  I see her obstructing the discussion here with things more trivial, IMO, than the issue of uppercase comments and impeding the development of this article to the level of sophistication the subject deserves.  And, she’s apparently blaming everyone else for its lack of social explanation and inadequate treatment of dissenting views.    
:::How about the context of Lepine not being like other multiple killers?  People should not be given the impression that he’s like other school shooters, or we are told.  Why not? Were other shooters not intelligent? Were they not alienated by the changing world they inhabit?  Did they not have legitimate reasons for feeling frustration, anger, and so forth, or were the others just crazy people?  We get no social explanation there either. How about engaging with the literature on this subject?  I don’t see that.  On one hand, she implicitly rejects a psychohistorical  explanation (i.e., with child abuse as a causal factor), but at the same time uses an approach that seems to owe a lot to Alice Miller.  
:::Maybe I'm reading her contributions wrong, but the onus is not on me to clarify her argument so that I'll become convinced by it. In the meantime, I’ve come to believe that the point of view she's been aggressively pushing here hasn't been received well, not because we're all brainwashed feminists silencing dissent, but because it's just not a compelling analysis from the get go that instead results in confusing claims and fails to convince.  Her conclusions far outstrip the evidence produced.  But again, the relevant point is that it is a novel interpretation that she is trying to promote, which has no notability, and runs roughshod over one or more of the few non-negotiable Wikipedia pillars because it is original research.  There are lots of dissenting and novel interpretations on this out there that may or may not be notable enough for inclusion, so why are we being sidetracked with one held by one of the editors?
:::Many of your suggestions require good faith on part of the contributors. I've assumed good faith in the past, and have tried to make constructive comments, I've copyedited and formatted additions made by Sue to the article, while sincerely attempting to not change the meaning of her words. She has yet to respond to any of the points I raise, even if to reject them, and instead makes pointed attacks in screaming uppercase. Slp1 especially has bent over backwards to try and work with Sue on this, not against her, apparently with little luck. Rarely are dissenting voices accommodated and listened to to the extent that has been tried here. The result?  It's still either Sue's way or an edit war, and that's a situation entirely created by her not playing by the rules that most others have agreed to abide by for the sake of accomplishing a common goal.  My intention here is to be direct, not harsh or rude, so I apologize if offense is taken by my tone; I don’t know Sue and have no beef with her personally and have tried to keep my comments civil and confined to her contributions here.  I no longer assume good faith from her because what I’ve seen has consistently indicated the opposite.  I will avoid directly engaging with her because of this, but it appears that there have been some creative interpretations of what has been happening with this article that are distortions and frankly quite insulting to other editors. Bobanny 02:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: another reply to JS2007

message: I suspect most of the articles on Sue's website are copyright violations.  There is no mention on any of them that they are GDFL.  Furthermore, Sue does not state that she uses these articles with permission.  Her disclaimer at the end of each: "Please contact Sue McPherson, website editor, if you have any queries about the site or further information to add, broken links to report, or believe human rights are being violated through publication of this material." is certainly interesting but does not refer to copyright at all.  These are not excerpts, they are the full text of these documents (which download when you click on them as word documents, something I was not prepared for and generally speaking, you shouldn't spring downloads on people when they're not expecting them.)  Without any assertion of permission I can only conclude that most of the material on the website, not written by Sue herself, while properly credited, is in fact, a copyright violation.  There are a lot of reasons for the not including the link.  This is a particularly persuasive one to me. Dina 15:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Other reasons include no alexa rank 63 google hits, almost all of which are the website itself or related to Sue.  It links to Sue's homestead homepage & blogspot blog.  It is, as Bobanny points out, essentially an essay blog not using blogger.  It is extremely poorly designed, both visually and in terms of navigation.  The comments in the comment section are added by emailing Sue and then she chooses to post them.  Therefore it's not surprising that the small handful of comments included all praise her work and agree with her.  The hit counter is at 3461 since its creation in November 2005.  The discussion surrounding this Wikipedia article can easily account for at least 100 of those.  Furthermore, the articles and essays by Sue, while clearer and easier to read than some of her contributions here, suffer from some fuzzy thinking and misappropriation of intellectualisms, and do not, in mu opinion add much to the topic at hand.  Cheers. Dina 15:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A very good reason (among others) for not including Sue's website