Talk:Disappearance of Sky Metalwala

Surname/given name

I find it confusing that the mother is being called by her last name and the father by his first name. If you're concerned about overlapping with the name of the boy, would you consider calling her by her first name, too? Yoninah (talk) 00:07, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

@Yoninah: I believe this usage is in keeping with MOS:LASTNAME for both of them. If Biryukova took her first husband's last name upon their marriage, nothing I've found as a source suggests that and her birth last name was always the one used in news coverage. Daniel Case (talk) 06:55, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

OK. But what about calling him by his last name to balance things out? Yoninah (talk) 13:20, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

@Yoninah: See MOS:SAMESURNAME. It would be harder to distinguish between him and his son in the repeated references to both of them. Daniel Case (talk) 17:39, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

OK, I understand. Yoninah (talk) 18:43, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Bias

This article is a character assassination on the mother. Rightly or wrongly, the terms employed, e.g she claims to have run out of gas etc are emotive and need proper correction throughout. She didn't "claim", she "stated", etc. I find that the majority of the article is poorly toned, and have tagged it as such. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:59, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

 Done Daniel Case (talk) 00:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

See Also

I am having major problems with the connection of this article with another. Editors cannot make synthesis connections based upon similarities - it is by definition, original research. Find a source that connects them; we as editors cannot draw connections. Its an encylopedia, not a detective story. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 16:26, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

"The links in the 'See also' section might be only indirectly related to the topic of the article because one purpose of 'See also' links is to enable readers to explore tangentially related topics ... Whether a link belongs in the 'See also' section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense." I agree this could get OR-ish, but the MOS here says nothing about it having to be sourced (I would imagine any sourced connection between the two cases would properly be inline in the article anyway). If you disagree and think that the policy should explicitly require sourced connections, you should propose a change in the MOS to say so. Daniel Case (talk) 01:30, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, you and I both know how uncommon 'common sense' is, and how very little judgment is exercised by some editors. While I agree with you that this is a a guideline is desperate, desperate need for change (to better reflect WP:NOR), I would like to ask if you could be troubled to find a connection between the two via reference. I ask because what you see as a connection a reader might not see, or might think that the two are directly related (a la the Smiley face murder theory would be but one example of this sort of conflation). I'd really appreciate it if you would try. When I looked for it, I could find no connection via reference. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 02:43, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

@Jack Sebastian:"... you and I both know how uncommon 'common sense' is, and how very little judgment is exercised by some editors". Abusus non tollit usum. And be careful going down this road; IMO the price for doing so is your ability to assume good faith.

I do not see the need for changing the requirements of WP:SEEALSO to require the link itself be sourced, to be totally honest. It is by design and its very title not meant to be part of the article's primary information payload; I do not think a reasonably competent reader would assume otherwise.

For a practical application of this policy in a context in some ways similar to this one, I would commend your attention to this discussion that took place sometime ago on Talk:Death of Caylee Anthony over what I would agree was potentially a more problematic addition to the section in the accompanying article. It was sourced while included; however everyone seems to agree this was an unusual practice and it was an unusual situation (Ultimately, I think, the issue was moot since the term was linked from the article itself, making the See Also link unnecessary and contrary to explicitly stated policy; since then it seems that the link is not in the article at all and I frankly agree with that since Caylee wasn't a woman).

I would also note that there aren't many examples of such links being sourced anywhere else in Wikipedia. To take an example from a field other than true crime (and again, I only consider this article to be "true crime" in the purely generic sense as while Julia Biryukova is widely suspected of a crime, and the police freely admit she could be charged with one, they have declined to do so and no one else been suspected either so the investigation cannot be considered criminal at this point. Therefore, I'm not putting it in WP:CRIME. Not yet), there are see-also links at 11/22/63 to episodes of the mid'-80s Twilight Zone revival and Family Guy that share the same general plot of "someone goes back in time to prevent horrible event, and succeeds in doing so, but discovers that preventing the horrible event either will cause, or is likely to cause, even more horrible events to happen instead, so they restore the original timeline". I think the similarity there is evident enough to point out to the reader who may find it of interest even without any sources saying so to point up that connection. SEEALSO says the section "should reflect the links that would be present in a comprehensive article on the topic", which I take to mean even those that would be present if someone had chosen to write about them. In this connection I would note also that the language we have in so many other pages offering editorial guidance that explicitly mandates the use of sources for information is conspicuously absent from SEEALSO.

Certainly See Also is not beyond the reach of policy; I would assume that the good editorial judgement called for would keep out links that seem to be introducing a POV, or violating BLP, or usually both (And in that connection re the present article: if we were to go strictly with comparisons made in reliable sources, or at least what we can generally cite as reliable sources, I found a couple of RSes that would support adding, ironically enough, Death of Caylee Anthony to that section, mainly because Nancy Grace kept making the connection on her now-canceled (thankfully!) CNN show. And I would consider that connection itself to be straining BLP at best, since it relies primarily on pile-on criticism of Casey Anthony's behavior—behavior held to be inappropriate for a young, grieving mother from a socially marginal group—after Caylee's disappearance that is similar to that leveled at Julia Biryukova here. While that information in both cases was widely reported and commented on in mainstream reliable sources, making it a relevant part of its encyclopedicity whether we like it or not in those articles, to connect the two cases through that aspect alone would seem like coatracking to me, especially given the implicit condemnation and accusation of Biryukova already so heavy in the sources that I had to soften the article's tone a little bit as noted above. I did consider including it in the see-also section, but decided not to for that reason (See? Good editorial judgement at work! It can happen). The two cases are also substantially different otherwise, at least at this point, beyond a connection between the child's body and a car: Caylee Anthony's body was found, her mother was charged, tried and acquitted of murder.

Having said all this, I can now explain my particular reasons for including the case of Ayla Reynolds in this article's See Also:

• Both cases involve a very young child, a child too young to have been assumed to have left of his/her own accord without having been easily found in the vicinity, disappearing from a fixed location while in the custody of a caregiver during a time when they were unattended.
• In both cases the child's parents were or had been going through a divorce with custody still an issue.
• In both cases the police found physical evidence that suggested to them that they weren't getting the truth (Biryukova) or the full story (Reynolds) and said publicly that they had doubts as a result.
• In both cases the custodial parent has not spoken much to either police or the media about the incident despite widely expressed suspicion.

Now, I grant that there are differences—Sky Metalwala allegedly disappeared from his mother's parked car in broad daylight, a car he may not even actually have been in, while Ayla Reynolds was indisputably in her father's house the night she went missing from her crib (in that respect, I would agree, the strongest See Also candidate for the latter article would be Disappearance of Lisa Irwin (and, one I hope to have created a year from now for its 20th anniversary, Disappearance of Sabrina Aisenberg, another infant who allegedly went missing from her crib overnight with signs of a possible trespass in the house, and suspicion of the parents that in that case reached the point of an actual arrest)). But I think those similarities are pretty interesting, and a reader might want to check the other case out as both children are still missing (and the Reynolds case will be turning five next month, too). Daniel Case (talk) 19:04, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

That was quite a wall of text you threw at me, Daniel. Let me ask a simple question, to which there is a simple yes or now answer: did a reliable source write of a similarity between the Metalwala and Reynolds disappearances? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 21:09, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

As policy currently stands, there is no need to justify it with a reliable source, so your question is moot (your TL;DR notwithstanding). Now if you want to argue it's a stretch to relate them, that is where the argument should lie. I might be open to convincing on those grounds, as the "wall of text" that apparently tested your reading skills too greatly allows. Daniel Case (talk) 21:49, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, there's almost no doubt that there's no reliable source linking these disappearances. All to often users make imaginative links from one article to another, they are, of course, pure OR and should be discouraged. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:34, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Now that's a little better; if you think this is an imaginative link, I'm open to reading what you have to say in that department. I have certainly removed my share of really unrelated links from other articles' see-alsos, so I'm willing to listen. Daniel Case (talk) 21:49, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

In fact, your "description" attached to that "see also" is bordering on a BLP violation, so it should be cited. Is that the way this is heading? Is the link due to the temporal proximity or just the coincidental similarities of the case, or both? What's the key here? If there was a real attachment between the two cases, there'd be an RS describing it, and it should therefore be added into the prose of the article with some encyclopedic analysis. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:56, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

OK, if you think there's a BLP violation, I think I can read a more elaborate argument. Or throw in a cite to the Reynolds case in the description. Maybe I'll do that. Daniel Case (talk) 03:33, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

 Done Daniel Case (talk) 03:39, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

You missed Rambling's point; the reference he was talking about was a citation from a source that noted the similarities between the two cases, not a reference that the Reynolds case can be referenced in an of itself. The BLP violation is to consider the cases linked in some way without supposition - something that we as editors cannot do.- Jack Sebastian (talk) 16:06, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

He specifically referenced the "'description'". That's a component of the edit, not the whole thing; and he called it a "borderline" violation, suggesting it could be seen as a judgement call. The description does not suggest that the same person committed both crimes, just that there are similarities.

I think you should let this go now; consensus went clearly against you. Daniel Case (talk) 04:57, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Stop connecting entirely different disappearances based on personally observed similarities

The title pretty much says it all, but here's a very simple question:

Who is making the connection that these two disappearances are similar, the editor or a reliable source?

If the former, we cannot connect them, as that is synthesis, a facet of Original Research. If the latter, the person wanting the material has failed to add the refernce from a reliable source that notes the similarities. As editors, we cannot create connections. We use sources that do that instead. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 19:19, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jack Sebastian:Jack ... please. You're too good an editor to be engaging in behavior like this. As noted above, consensus at the discussion clearly went against your position, regardless of how you have chosen to interpret consensus in order to disregard it (Frankly, your argument here boils down to little better than "I lost but I don't want to admit it"). Consensus that resulted after you tried twice to change policy to your point of view without discussing it first. This is not responsible, community-friendly editorial behavior.

Yes, per your edit summary, I've discussed it, in the hope that this one time you will accept reason. I will now revert your edit. Again.

If I have to revert again, I will be requesting page protection immediately afterwards because it would be better for Wikipedia that you be able to edit other articles rather than have you blocked from doing so again, for 48 hours this time or whatever the blocking admin decides (despite my vast experience on the pushing end of the block button, I will defer to whatever a blocking admin would deem appropriate in that circumstance).

Also, please don't revert and then seek page protection yourself; that would look like you're playing this little game. Daniel Case (talk) 19:32, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

@Daniel Case:: Respectfully, you have misinterpreted the discussion at MOS; that was regarding the legitimacy of See Also sections entirely as constructs of original research; If you look at it again, there was a decided resistance to allowing comparisons of BLP.

Pointedly, you are not allowed as per BLP, to connect the disappearances of two people simply because you feel there are similarities. As in the case of alll BLP-related articles, if any information is challenged, it must be cited or removed or removed:

"All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation. Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.[2] Users who persistently or egregiously violate this policy may be blocked from editing." - WP:BLP, second paragraph

Now, you could of course argue that these people aren't governed by BLP, but that would be a mistake; these disappearances involve people who might be alive, and therefore are accorded the protections of BLP. You could also argue that See Also sections are exempt from BLP protection, which I think you would find a tough sell within Wikipedia. If you wish to initiate an RfC with regards to this, that's fine with me, but - as I see it - connecting these two is a violation of BLP. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 20:28, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

What I think you would mean is that the people suspected of possible foul play in these disappearances is what triggers the BLP issues. On that I agree; however that to me converts the question into "does noting the similar circumstances of these two cases violate BLP in and of itself where a source from the other article is cited"? I don't think anyone is going to infer that the same persons are responsible, especially where the wording of the explanation makes clear that the two cases occurred thousands of miles away from each other.

I think that requires a broad reading of BLP by the standards of broad readings of BLP to support. The "challenged or likely to be challenged" language is often taken to refer explicitly to facts or the way they are stated.

I might take you up on this about starting a discussion, although I'm not yet sure it would need to rise to the level of an RfC. Daniel Case (talk) 00:56, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@Daniel Case:: I don't see them as similar, beyond the exceptionally superficial. For you to draw those similarities - in the absence of a reference doing just that - is synthesis. You are saying that the disappearances of these two living persons (and the persons around them) are similar, and you haven't offered any evidence of similarity or connectedness. If they are in fact connected, there must surely be a source that notes the similarities as well. We need that reference to connect them. We cannot do so. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 01:14, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I reread the discussion at WT:MOSLAYOUT just to be on the safe side, and you're just restating an argument that was thoroughly rejected by everyone else there. Again.

Aside from which I don't see how "a case of a 20-month-old girl in Maine where the parent's story was also found suspect by the police without charges being filed", with an RS from that case cited to support the stated fact, can be considered "exceptionally superficial" by anyone. It is not every case of a missing child where the child was in one parent's custody at the time of the disappearance, against the background of a recent custody dispute, and the police publicly cast doubt on the parent's story of the disappearance but do not file charges. "Superficial" would be including a link to every other case of a missing toddler in See Also, a task a navbox would be better suited for in any event.

You are confusing "connected" with "similar", the latter of which is allowed under WP:SEEALSO, as you have conceded. Now, as I've said, if you feel the wording of the explanation for including the Reynolds disappearance in that section somehow violates BLP by suggesting that the same perpetrator is responsible for both disappearances, make your case for that. But I think we would be forgiven for assuming a reader of average (or even below average) intelligence would not infer such a connection from the mere note of similarities between the two cases.

You don't have to reply right away; I have to go eat something. Daniel Case (talk) 01:27, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@Daniel Case:: So, every other case of a child that goes missing in the care of their parents should be part of the See Also? The Death of JonBenét Ramsey the Lindbergh kidnapping and the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann are all quite similar; why aren't they listed in the See Also sections of each other's article?

You're overgeneralizing, so much that you mention the same article twice. But since you did ... well, the obvious answer is that neither article currently has a see-also section, so that's why. But if they did, I'd put them in each other's. Not because they were both instances of a child kidnapped (or allegedly kidnapped, anyway) from their parents' homes while their families were there so much as because they both became objects of huge national media attention in their respective eras. (As far as the details of the cases, I would agree with your intimation that there aren't enough similarities between the two crimes to justify that placement. But that's not the only thing involved). Daniel Case (talk) 04:05, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Before you answer that, allow me to re-ask the far more important question here: who decides what other articles are similar enough to end up in a See Also section? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:51, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Editors. Any of us. Any of us can make the addition per WP:SEEALSO; anybody else can take something out if they don't think it meets the criteria or the relevance is unclear. Daniel Case (talk) 04:05, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@Daniel Case:: You mean,like I removed it for not being similar enough to the article? My problem with this is twofold: I can't remove it because you personally think they are similar, whereas I don't. If its challenged, it has to be cited.

If two editors disagree about something like this, they can discuss it on the talk page and perhaps invite others to join them. Daniel Case (talk) 05:47, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: Got it, which is why I did that very thing. Your response was to gently threaten me with blocking.

So here we are, in discussion. Which is where i suggested an RfC, so as to bring more people to the discussion.

What's next? Because you have not indicated to me why, after a part of a BLP has been challenged for factualness, that you are still not inclined to add a refernce to support it. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 19:37, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

My second problem has to do with the synthetic connections that an editor is making. If someone citable out there in the world didn't note a similarity, how do we get to? We are not citable. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 05:20, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

"If someone citable out there in the world didn't note a similarity, how do we get to?" Because WP:SEEALSO says we're allowed to do it within that section of an article, limited by "editorial judgment and common sense". All the other editors in that discussion you had all last month over there accepted that. I really don't see the point of continuing to hash this out as it does not appear you're going to be able to accept this. Daniel Case (talk) 05:47, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Not a chance, because its flat-out wrong. Its allowing editors to use original research, and I've yet to hear a cogent argument that convinces me otherwise. So yeah, I will be keeping at that until people grow less afraid of instruction creep and recognize the idea as useful. Patience I've got. Time I've got. All I need is to stay on message and wait for enough people to come around and see the light. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 19:37, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Given that your argument implies, as others besides me have pointed out, a serious departure from AGF, you will facing an uphill battle. Almost like a climb. Daniel Case (talk) 06:13, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: Eek, you used worst possible post by a hostile user, who, in other posts on the subject, called me, at turns, "insane" and "arrogant"; the link you added was them attempting to backpedal. "oh, I didn't assume any bad faith on you", despite creating the most hostile discussion environment outside of a nationalist article talk page.

But hey, you're the one who decided to use the post as a shield, let's address it. You say two disappearances of children are similar, because you (personally) have noticed a topical similarity. BLP clearly states that if "any material challenged or likely to be challenged (it) must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source"; this is not an interpretation - its the literal text at the topic of WP:BLP.

Now, you can try to throw shade by suggesting that this is only about a proposed change in See Also sections, but that's only partly right. While I have strong reservations about the current state of that MOS, the group there has spoken about an official way of doing things. How we conduct articles about BLP are also an official way of doing things. We don't add connections or deduce similarities that relaible sources have not. That's official policy. And, to be utterly frank with you, if no one else in the entire, citable world has taken note of this similarity, what arrogance on your part implies that your opinion matters more than that of the rest of the world? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 17:36, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Unless you have a specific reliable source actually connecting the two cases, it's pure 100% original research, it stays out. This is Wikipedia 101, as basic as can be.--Calton | Talk 06:04, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

@Calton: I direct your attention to WP:SEEALSO, which says, in relevant part: "Whether a link belongs in the 'See also' section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense" Note that, as I said above, the requirement for a source that otherwise (properly) all over policy is conspicuous by its absence here.

Jack started a discussion on exactly this issue at the relevant talk page after he got reverted twice trying to change the wording unilaterally (again, see above); the consensus went against him. If you revert this, you are editing against that consensus. Daniel Case (talk) 06:15, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I believe you are laboring under the false belief that the SeeAlso MOS trumps how Wikipedia treats subjects of biographies, when it does not. This has been pointed out before. SeeAlso is not a permission slip to run roughshod over our policies, and certainly not over the articles of real-world, living people.

The current SeeAlso policy presumes the wisdom of the editor to use their editorial judgment and common sense when populating See also sections. Ask yourself: since most FA ang GA-quality articles don't even use See Also sections, is it still considered good editorial judgment and a demonstration of common sense to continue to revert out challenged material in an article.

For instance, since we seem to be fond of dropping quotes, here's a very special one:

"...any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation. Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.[2] Users who persistently or egregiously violate this policy may be blocked from editing." - BLP, second paragraph, first sentence.

What that means is that if any material in a BLP is challenged, you must supply an inline citation comparing the two disappearances. It also means that your continued reverting of two different editors offering valid viewpoints could be construed as persistent violation of this policy. As you are an administrator, I am sure that if - were someone else to act this way - you'd counsel or warn them to stop reverting. I am counseling you to reconsider your stance on this topic, please. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 06:34, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Jack, while I yield to none in my understanding of the importance of BLP, nothing on that page says that it takes precedence over other policies (I searched on that page and did not find the word), which I seem to recall was a decision made when that policy was first promulgated to forestall precisely this sort of dispute, in case people did inadvertently got it in their heads that it was one of the five pillars of Wikipedia. Certainly it is worded in such a way as to make it hard to appeal against, but there is nothing on the page saying it takes precedence.

If other people are going to come in and revert, perhaps I should just put that request for page protection through as a safeguard against anyone doing something in the heat of the moment they may come to regret later. Daniel Case (talk) 06:51, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

@Calton: I direct your attention to WP:SEEALSO,...

That's nice. Who cares?

I do. Daniel Case (talk) 07:53, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

And you're the only one. I've also noticed you haven't provided an evenly slightly adequate explanation of WHY. --Calton | Talk 08:35, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Let me direct your attention to something actually policy-based: WP:ORIGINAL.

Um, SEEALSO is part of MOSLAYOUT, and the MOS is also policy, even if that page specifically is not marked as such. This issue was specifically discussed on that page's talk page recently, after an effort to make a change that specifically incorporated the language you suggest was reverted because that page is subject to discretionary sanctions over exactly this sort of attempt to change rules like these so someone can win an argument somewhere, and your reading of it was rejected out of hand.

You can try to change that yourself if you'd like, but do it at policy level, not at the page level. Daniel Case (talk) 07:53, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

The Manual of Style doesn't override foundational policy, no matter how much you huff and puff, no matter how much authority you pretend to. I'm sorry that someone who's supposed to be an administrator has forgotten that basic rule when it's convenient for him. --Calton | Talk 08:35, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Again, do you have a reliable source connecting the two cases? If not -- and your attempts to avoid that question suggest you don't -- because unless you have a specific reliable source actually connecting the two cases, it's pure 100% original research, your personal attempt to connect the two cases by whatever criterion inside your head. it stays out until you show otherwise. This is Wikipedia 101, as basic as can be, and you should know this. --Calton | Talk 07:21, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I do. I'm sorry you learned the hard way that there are exceptions to even some of our most basic policies. Have all the trouble you want wrapping your head around that, but don't make life difficult for the rest of us in the process. Daniel Case (talk) 07:53, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Someone who states fundamental errors with perfect -- albeit wrong -- assurance isn't entitled to veiled personal attacks. How exactly DID you become an administrator? --Calton | Talk 08:35, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Daniel, I don't know why you keep citing FleetCommand's posts - they were incredibly aggressive in how they attacked a simple, polite proposal. You aren't doing youself any favors in using them as a benchmark. As well, your suggestion that people are going to keep reverting your version, then maybe you should just RFPP to preserve your preferred version (as per WP:WRONG). Please, we aren't attacking you; we are simply disagreeing with your viewpoint. As an admin, you know that we are presenting cogent disagreements to your viewpoint. Stop seeing them as an attack on you and lashing out.

I agree FC was a little rough, but believe me I've seen a lot worse. His tone should not, however, be allowed to eclipse the substance of his response, and he wasn't the only one making that point. Daniel Case (talk) 07:55, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

"A little rough?" The user called my polite, simple request "insane", impossible, arrogant, and sicounted my opinion because I didn't have any FA or GA articles to my name. The user was a dick. You'r ean admin: when did insulting someone EVER change their mind to get the desired result? And you are largely incorrect about his underlying point. But that is not what we are discussing here, though you seem determined to make this a proxy battle about SEEALSO. It really isn't, except to determine what level of "good judgment" and "common sense" we should apply to the type of articles where uncited information is tightly controlled. I know you have arrived at the conclusion that comparing these two BLP articles can easily be perceived in a negative way (why else the attempt at a conciliatory edit?). Why not just do what you yourself have advised me to do - put down the stick and walk away from the dead horse. I have to admit; I am deeply disappointed that you were canvassing others to support your viewpoint, and my respect for you has taken a hit because of it. You need to be listening to editors when they are talking to you, and not just using the time we are taking to post to comprise a reply. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 10:01, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

"sicounted my opinion because I didn't have any FA or GA articles to my name. FleetCommand opposed your proposal by saying that "Good articles are written by good editors in possession of excellent judgment". You then responded "While there are excellent editors out there, they are excellent because they follow the policies that we set down"

So you brought the topic of editor quality into the discussion, and FC responded by noting, a little brusquely, that it was a little hard for him to accept this argument from someone who, it seemed to him, had never engaged in the hard work of developing an article to the point of recognition (And, in fact, about 12 hours later you retroactively stated that this was part of the purpose of your proposal).

May I suggest that, even regardless of whether you have or haven't done serious article work, he is within his rights to call your position "arrogant"? Especially when you take it as an argumentative given that very few editors possess good judgement, so we can't write even a very specifically limited exception to OR that would demonstrate that level of trust (AGF notwithstanding). To any editor who has worked on an article to the point of nominating it for GA or FA (and I know some of those other editors in that discussion have done that kind of work), that is inherently insulting. You didn't seem to have any awareness of this, and still don't.

You compounded your missteps even further when you misrepresented OR as "one of the pillars of Wikipedia", which as FC immediately reminded you is untrue. Your response focused on your own pain and did not acknowledge this misunderstanding. I could forgive the editors in that discussion for thinking that you were one of those people for which everything is always all about them.

I do not see the logic by which him calling your proposal "insane" becomes, in your reading, a personal insult. He did not say you were insane. Being taken aback by a strongly-worded reaction like that (and I have been there too) should not be seen as an opportunity to accuse the other editor of insulting you. It looks disingenuous.

Consider further that this came after you had twice attempted to make this policy change without initiating a discussion about it ... something the words "Manual of Style" in the page title make almost any editor think ten times, or at least twice, before making an edit that isn't pure housekeeping to that page without bringing it up on the talk page first (There's a reason all the MOS pages are subject to discretionary sanctions). Would you honestly have expected them to be fully giving you the benefit of the doubt? I suspect he might not have called your proposed change "insane" if you had brought it up on the talk page, as most any perceptive editor would have, without just going ahead and doing it.

Now perhaps he should be given the chance to reconsider that comment and offer you an apology due to the offense you took, but if he were to do that (and even if he weren't) you should read over your own remarks and see just how little understanding of AGF you demonstrated, and how cavalier you seemed when that concern was expressed to you. Editors who do a lot of content work, whether they are admins or not, generally know on a gut level just how important that is to building content. It is the grease that makes the gears of Wikipedia spin (no, I didn't make that up just now; someone said it a long time ago and it's stuck with me as the best metaphor).

As for the canvassing part ... I will admit I accepted that you would probably accuse me of doing that, but I felt that since your actions had demonstrated a conscious disregard of process, of the outcome of a discussion there that you had initiated, which then led to you initiating a discussion at a forum where, it could be argued, regular participants were likelier to see things your way, that it was only fair that the editors whose consensus you disregarded should be invited to weigh in at the discussion of the same edit you initiated at a different forum (a discussion which a third editor had to take it upon themselves to notify me of, another breach of wikiquette on your part that has not sat well with me). Remedial AGF: The assumption behind WP:CANVASS is that people won't forum-shop, either. I am not saying the one always would justify the other, but I felt that respecting process was important here, and you have not done so well at that.

I know you have arrived at the conclusion that comparing these two BLP articles can easily be perceived in a negative way (why else the attempt at a conciliatory edit?) Because maybe said conciliatory edit was, to me, an acceptable compromise that does not imply an endorsement of your viewpoint on my part but is, instead, the way things ought to be done in this regard? A compromise offer which, instead of discussing, you reverted with the edit summary saying we should discuss it (which you haven't done or attempted to do until now). If you want to explain why you don't think it would work when it specifically was meant to address your concern that the two cases could be seen as linked by the mere act of inclusion in the See Also section, I am genuinely willing to read it (I would say "listen", but in this medium "read" is correct). I think I know what you will say, but I will read it and respond to it purely on the merits without suggesting you're "insane" or anything like that . Daniel Case (talk) 19:11, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

And lastly, I consider the feelings of real life people depicted in these articles to be of far more importance than an ill-utilized comparison in a See Also section. If someone citable had made the comparison, then that's on them. This is unnecessarily cruel to the families of the disappeared. BLPs should not and can not be left to the whimsy of an editor who sees something that no one else citable has. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 07:26, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I think you meant "whim" Daniel Case (talk) 07:55, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Would you prefer to point that out in Latin, Daniel? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 08:31, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

"Quod puto 'whim'" (Well, you asked).

Now, to respond purely without snark or snarl to your argument, which I'm glad you're finally back to making ... I admit a superficial reading could lend itself to the interpretation that it might be hurtful to the families of the missing children. Lately I've written quite a few of these "unsolved mystery" type articles and yes, you can't thoroughly research them without reading about the emotional impact on the families, especially in cases of missing children (which, to be honest, I generally don't like to write about, not because of the emotions (although they are there) but more because they're usually not such complex cases: the child disappears, and hasn't been found, with few developments after the disappearance. Other people have usually developed them to the necessary extent). I wrote a lot of Disappearance of Asha Degree, and one of the sources there is an interview with her mother in Jet, some years after the case, in which it's clear she still feels the pain (And sometimes it's the things people don't actually say: The article notes that every room in the Degree house has an age-progressed picture of Asha in it, showing her as the teenager or young woman she might yet be somewhere).

But one of the things that makes these cases painful for the families, it has seemed to me, is the feeling that the world has moved on and forgotten, after all the initial attention died down. They actually don't mind fresh attention to the case ... nominally because it might bring someone to come forward and tell the police something that might lead to the person (or, usually, their body) being found, but I think also because it briefly makes the pain easier to endure. And if that comes from comparisons to similar cases elsewhere, it doesn't matter.

In the instant case, if you read the article, I think Solomon Metalwala wouldn't mind that multiplying effect, given how clearly he shares the police's suspicions that his ex-wife might well be knowing more than she's telling. It seems to me the same is true of Ayla Reynolds' mother. Maybe I should get in touch with Mr. Metalwala or his attorney and ask them myself if they think this connection in the article is painful for them if we really want to be sure. Daniel Case (talk) 19:34, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Given your fundamental misunderstandings of some pretty basic concepts, I don't think you get the luxury of that smirk.

So, any reliable sources connecting the two cases? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? --Calton | Talk 08:35, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

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Regarding the location

Some weeks ago, I edited the article removing the word "undeveloped" from a description of the street and specific location where Biryukova stated she ran out of gas. @Daniel Case: was wondering how else I might describe it. I'm not sure. Heavily wooded? A bypass, perhaps. It's a moderately-trafficked connector that enables one to go around a stretch of highway. Several bus stops dot that stretch of road; there's an offramp just north of it that dumps you directly onto that stretch, as well as a large office complex (although it was Sunday) and a transfer point for the local bus sits just opposite the highway at the north end of the block. At the south end is a Montessori school. 112th is also one of the main entry and exit points for the adjacent residential neighborhood.

I'd avoid writing anything that might leave readers thinking she parked her car in an obscure location. Less visible than many other places, to be sure - the sound wall does obscure one entire side of the road - but on a Sunday morning, you might expect dozens or hundreds of cars to pass through that block in a given hour, heading to the highway bound for Seattle, heading to church, heading to the minor transit hub just beyond the underpass, or heading southbound to reach downtown Bellevue.

There are surely hundreds of 'more' visible locations in Bellevue, but that's not an especially invisible spot, it's just a weird one. I think it's fine with the mention of the sound barrier. It's a street on one side and a concrete wall on the other, that's good, that's what it is. Moralis (talk) 04:27, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

You know what might really help the article out, then? A picture. Do you think you could get one? Daniel Case (talk) 05:13, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Hardly having touched WP over the past several years, I'm failing utterly to use Template:Google_maps. I've got the syntax right, but I don't want it inline. However, if you can make that thing fit nicely, there's a Street View capture dated August, 2011, only a few months prior to the disappearance. (That's almost exactly where you dropped your pin before.) I might describe it as a "long, heavily-wooded section of road that follows a tall concrete noise barrier..." I think that's about right, gets the point across.

Well, the problem is that Google owns the copyright on the image, and that would fail the fair-use criteria since it would be easy to create a replacement free image (assuming the area hasn't substantially changed since then). Daniel Case (talk) 03:33, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant throw it in as a footnote, just the link to Street View, captioned. I've seen that done, you know... around... at least with Maps, just for expository purposes. Thing is, that's a tough photo to get if you don't have a camera strapped to the roof of your car. --Moralis (talk) 04:43, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I only bothered to remove the word "undeveloped" in the first place because the local perception is quite the opposite of what a reader from out of town might glean from it - you might imagine that she parked the car someplace where nobody would happen across it, a road with nothing on it, or far out of town, or removed from commerce or etc. On the contrary. It might be that dozens or hundreds of people drove past a car containing an unattended child without noticing. That's not hard to believe; how often do you look inside stalled cars when you drive past? But there's just no way a ton of people didn't drive through during the time Biryukova claims the disappearance occurred. People are driving past constantly.

--Moralis (talk) 01:46, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

"Sulaiman Metalwala, supposedly Solomon's brother"

Sulaiman is an Arabic form of Solomon, and would be pronounced similarly. It's more than possible that it was just Solomon, before he started using the more American form of his name. While it would be possible for two brothers to have such similar names, it would be like two brothers being named Thomas and Tomas. That's speculation on my part and contradicts the source for that bit, so I'm not editing the article - just wanted to note it here in case it could at some point be considered relevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:989:4401:6C7F:3411:DD77:FA63:6F16 (talk) 01:57, 24 September 2018 (UTC)