Talk:Gatestone Institute/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Removal of well-sourced material

Factchecker atyourservice recently removed well-sourced material. For example, in this edit, Factchecker removes "Some articles published on the Gatestone Institute's website have been criticized for making false claims about Muslims", claiming "Rm unsupported". Yet there's an entire section, with multiple reliable sources, that makes exactly that allegation against Gatestone. Also I have attempted to discuss this exact sentence above (Talk:Gatestone_Institute#Disappearing), where Factchecker could at least have responded before removing it. Here Factchecker claims "Rm poorly sourced claims", yet the two sources given are both reliable: Bloomberg and professor David Miller from University of Bath. If either of them is unreliable, I'd like to hear why. VR _talk 20:54, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I didn't remove that material, I rewrote it. What you wrote didn't accurately reflect the sourcing. What I wrote did. Factchecker_atyourservice 23:25, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

After you were done editing, the following text had disappeared and wasn't replaced by anything that said the same thing.

• Gatestone's claims were picked up by many outlets, including FrontPageMag.
• Gatestone has been accused of making false claims about Muslim issues. (in the lede)
  • This sentence was removed in spite of the fact that I had posted a message on the talk to not remove it (Talk:Gatestone_Institute#Disappearing), and you removed it without even bothering to leave a message on talk.

In here you used "Sharia-run 'no-go' areas" and removed "Muslim-dominated neighborhoods that are largely off-limits to non-Muslims", even though Bloomberg quotes Gatestone saying the former. On a stylistic note, you also replaced two fairly clear sentences with one overly long one.VR _talk 04:41, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

The claims about "Sharia-run 'no-go' areas" are what was demonstrably false. The Gatestone report is mentioned only because it referred to the Pipes claims which were later retracted. The report was made before the claims were retracted. Bloomberg does not "accuse" Gatestone of "spreading false claims". Factchecker_atyourservice 18:49, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Bloomberg says that many have made the no-go zone claim, including Gatestone. That claim is demonstrably untrue, though it does have a grain of truth to it. We note both in the article, even though the "grains of truth" part wasn't in the same paragraph as the Gatestone stuff, just to keep things balanced. I think any fair reading of the article will come to the same conclusion, that Bloomberg is accusing Gatestone of making an untrue (therefore false) claim.VR _talk 03:11, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I've fixed the references in any case. Whatever the merits of this particular issue, I hope everyone agrees that if there is criticism it needs to be mentioned in the lead, right? Doug Weller talk 08:48, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Sure, but the lead should not summarize source misrepresentation. I've restored it to an accurate version. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:19, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

The idea that this is a misrepresentation of sources is your own original research. And its worthy of note that your first excuse was that it was a "coatrack". You also removed the section title "Allegations of false claim" despite the fact that the sources themselves clearly label it as "false" (ex snopes). Additionally your rewording of the para starting with "In 2012, an article in Gatestone claimed that..." makes no sense. The way you have it written is that... Bloomberg published just some random piece about Muslim-only areas. But of course they published that as a refutation to Gatestone's articles. Bloomberg also calls the claims "totally false". The claims of a "BLP exemption" to your edit warring are also specious.Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, if the institute retracted an article, I think that this should be mentioned, and specifications regarding what was actually said in the cited sources also seems preferable. David A (talk) 04:46, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Bloomberg contradicts themselves by also saying there are "grains of truth." This is why we can't agree on a paraphrase of Bloomberg and we are reduced to copious quotes. We should change the title of the section to "inaccurate claims" if we are to be exact. Jason from nyc (talk) 12:01, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

"Bloomberg contradicts themselves" is original research.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:31, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Done. I also removed the "allegation" part, because I think we can all agree that there was some degree of inaccuracy. It's plain for all of us to see EU isn't the Council of Europe, for example. Same thing with no-go zones, even Pipes has admitted he was mistaken.

Also, I don't think Bloomberg contradicts itself. She falsifies the claim "off-limits to law enforcement", but supports the idea of "police are afraid to respond to calls from dangerous neighborhoods". I think there's a huge difference between the police being afraid (something that most police all over the world have probably experienced), and police not even being able to enter certain locations.VR _talk 15:18, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, here in Sweden, the newspapers constantly write about how police officers, firemen, and ambulance drivers are systematically attacked by rock-throwing lynch mobs, as soon as they enter one of the 55 extremely lawless immigration-heavy areas in the country. Gordon Grattidge, the head of the ambulance driver's union, even officially confirmed this in an interview with the renowned local journalist Paulina Neuding. David A (talk) 05:52, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM. Second, this might have something to do with the kind of "newspapers" that you read.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:32, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I would appreciate a less condescending tone. Anyway, Göteborgs-Posten, Expressen, and Svenska Dagbladet are all regular mainstream newspapers, and despite the Swedish tendencies for self-censorship, even they tend to regularly write about it, due to how extremely common an occurrence it is. It even happened during the Islamic terror attack in Stockholm a few days ago, despite that the police were trying to save lives. David A (talk) 11:57, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

We've arguing about degrees of avoidance and ability to maintain the rule of law. Our article on No-go areas talks about this in France with sources like the New York Times [1] making the claim. The phrase is used in many ways with varying degrees of hinderance to entry. Taking the Bloomberg article as a whole, either they are basically saying the claims of Gatestone are exagerated or they are contradicting themselves. If it is the former, we should summarize it that way. If the latter, they are not a reliable source. Jason from nyc (talk) 11:29, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

They're obviously saying that Gatestone has grossly exaggerated. But I don't see the difference between exaggeration and falsehood. If the value of something is 5 and you report it is as 10, then that's both an exaggeration and also false. The lack of summary was, as you said, failure to come to an agreed upon wording. Hence we just quoted verbatim.VR _talk 23:26, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

@Jason from nyc, Malerooster, and David A: Absolutely agree that this material is ridiculously UNDUE, especially the weakly sourced and poorly analyzed Snopes piece by a non-journalist, making hay over trivial inaccuracies, mostly in a headline, which were later corrected. This is NOTNEWS in the sense that it's not even newsworthy in the first place, as evidence by the fact that mainstream press ignored it utterly. Please see my comment posted above. Factchecker_atyourservice 16:05, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I still maintain what I wrote on 00:24, 24 March 2017 that the Scopes article is about an editorial failure, common to even the best newspaper, and was corrected when pointed out. This is undue. Jason from nyc (talk) 11:10, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Jason. David A (talk) 12:58, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Both in this section and the one above it seems there's a lot of "well, I think the sources got it wrong" going on. That's original research. We stick with sources.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:43, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Summary by Factchecker atyourservice

This summary by Factchecker is kinda annoying. Factchecker writes "I'd be interested to hear a couple words about why you object, on the article's Talk page". But I have already explained why Factchecker's edits are objectionably.

In the edit with that summary, Factchecker removes "Nevertheless Gatestone's claims were picked up by many outlets, including FrontPageMag". Earlier, I objected to Factchecker removing this and defended the source (professor David Miller from University of Bath) for this statement.

In the same edit, Factchecker changes "Snopes rated the claim "false"" to "noted that the headline was incorrect". Yet here I explained that Snopes didn't just criticize the headline, but the article text as well.

So if Factchecker wants to engage in discussion, I'd be happy to. But please don't pretend that users haven't already objected to your edits on the talk page. Cause we have.VR _talk 23:43, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

VR that comment was directed to Marek and the reason I made it is that those edits were in fact new and completely different, yet Marek acted like it was a revert of the same text I had added previously and it wasn't. On top of that your recent edits had left a lot of my text alone so I thought we were making progress. My latest revision left your lead untouched and rewrote a paragraph in the criticism section, I don't see what in the world was wrong with them and in fact nobody has suggested anything was wrong with them, you're just all claiming you have the right to revert me.

Note that you're the one who's supposed to be persuading me that this material belongs in the article, and that includes both establishing the source itself and that it is being faithfully reflected. Please go read WP:BURDEN and note that it says "Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living people or existing groups". Now please also go look at WP:BLPREMOVE and note that "poorly sourced material" includes any "conjectural interpretation of a source". Thus by deduction it was always your job to demonstrate that the text you were adding faithfully reflected a proper source. Now, as it happens this sourcing is crap, but since the claims it's making are innocuous, I'm not going to the mat over the source itself. However we must not be using any charged rhetoric or "summary" language. Thus the preferable approach is to simply list every specific criticism Snopes makes, or at least all the important ones, using as much wording as necessary to convey the facts clearly without any ominous-sounding verbiage.

Conveying the facts clearly includes not misstating the source. The source only says the headline described the recommendations as "orders", and that's because it only was the headline that said that. Two inches below the headling they are clearly described as "recommendations". So our WP article is currently plain wrong because you guys aren't reading clearly and are revert-warring instead of discussing what you're reverting. That's problem #1, change the article text so it refers to the headline saying the report said they were orders.

Problem #2, "Snopes rated the claim 'false'" is just pointless editorializing soundbite rhetoric trying to make mistake sound serious when it wasn't. We can say the headline incorrectly referred to the recommendations as orders. We can say whatever other specific claim the Snopes source makes. We can't do all this window dressing that has no purpose other than to try to exaggerate the importance of these claims.

Problem #3, Pipes didn't "retract" his claims—what he said was in fact quite a bit more nuanced than that. (Article 1; Article 2). When he says he "regrets having called those areas no-go zones", he is talking about specific French neighborhoods that he previously referred to as no-go zones simply because they were on a French government list of depressed areas. He does say he regrets identifying the list as a list of no-go zones, but he also noted that the areas were quite dangerous if you were a government employee (e.g. policeman, firefighter) and he suggested calling them "partial" no-go zones. We can source those bits from his own website, but if you want to stick to the Bloomberg source alone we'd have to carefully adhere to what it says and make sure we don't say anything that is contradicted by Pipes's other writings. So we could say that he acknowledged there are no areas in Europe "where the government has lost control and cannot enforce the rule of law"—which he says in his email to Bloomberg—and that he regrets saying that the zones on the French list fit that definition. But note, that definition is different than the definition Gatestone used, which drives home how tangential the connection to Gatestone is. (We're talking about a source that doesn't mention it until the very end.)

All that being accomplished, I won't argue with you over the "opendemocracy.net" sourcing even though self-published opinion pieces by college professors (in sociology, no less) are rarely appropriate for BLP criticism.

So, to begin, I want to hear how you suggest changing the text to address these problems. Alternatively you could tell me what you think was wrong with my text in this diff and we can work from there. Factchecker_atyourservice 01:11, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Factchecker, you said: "you could tell me what you think was wrong with my text in this diff".

Isn't that what I just did in my last comment? In fact, my last comment itself was a repetition of earlier comments (and I gave links to those earlier comments).

1. Headline is part of the article, and, in any case, was published by Gatestone. You may argue that the author wasn't responsible for the headline, but we're not criticizing the author, we're criticizing Gatestone.

2. It's exactly what Snopes says and we attribute it to Snopes (as opposed to stating it as fact). Hence its fair game.

3. According to Bloomberg, a reliable source, Pipes admitted that his claims were "mistaken". That sounds like a retraction to me. Besides, didn't you yourself use the word "retracted"?VR _talk 02:28, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Ok @Vice regent: as I made very clear, I won't argue with you about the weak non-RS sourcing from "opendemocracy.net" (which amounts to a self-published blog post) if we fix the other problems identified, so I certainly hope we can move past that.

No, fact-free POV-pushing rhetoric is not "fair game" just because made by some non journalist who is barely even a college graduate writing for a non-RS. It is quite atypical and makes zero sense to go around rubber stamping every trivial error as a "FALSE CLAIM, OMG ALARM BELLS!!!" As suggested, let's just reflect all of the specific claims Garcia makes.

Note that none of this would be a problem if we were using actual RS's. I see that you have declined my request to suggest how the text could be changed to fix the problems I raised, so I've gone ahead and edited the article again. Remember your WP:BURDEN—and the policy that says not to leave damaging material in an article if it is a conjectural interpretation of sourcing—and please don't revert it unless you feel there is a reason to. I have made an effort to change as little as possible, in hopes of reaching agreement with you. This includes leaving in material that I find objectionable, just for the sake of compromise. Please follow suit and play nice. Factchecker_atyourservice 15:57, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

@Snooganssnoogans: Obviously we should not make the article misleading just for the sake of reducing the word count. It is already quite short. Just stop. Factchecker_atyourservice 16:09, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Factchecker. He is constantly trying to be rational and reasonable. He deserves a much better response in return. David A (talk) 16:16, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, yes, we know. That's more or less your role in these discussion, to just state your support for others with the same view but not actually elaborate. Not a democracy.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:16, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I am extremely busy managing one of the world's most popular entertainment wikis. I do not have much time left over for elaboration, nor does there seem to be a need for it, if I do not have much further to add to what has already been stated. In addition, Wikipedia does usually seem to function by majority decision, so I wish to support the people who fight for causes that I believe in. David A (talk) 19:14, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

The problem with the No-go area article is that this is part of a larger controversy (see our No-go area "Alleged contemporary no-go areas" section). The No-go area article doesn't even mention Gatestone and they are not the driving force in this debate. A single source focusing on Gatestone as if they were the driving force in the exaggeration is not completely unworthy of mention but it would be appropriate to give background to the controversy beyond what the Bloomberg does. But we con't do original research or WP:SYNTHESIS. This makes a summary contentious. Jason from nyc (talk) 11:10, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Agree with Vice regent. We go with what sources say, not what somebody thinks sources "should've said". Also, resuming an edit war, right after a block for edit warring expires is a really bad idea.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:16, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Marek, I don't care about your thoughts on whether I'm going to get blocked for edit warring nor are they relevant here. User talk pages and admin boards exist for a reason and you know that so kindly cease the noise. You're just trying to distract from the discussion.

The Snopes bit, that's just incredibly weak sourcing making an incredibly weak claim. The guy who wrote it has no journalistic education and his experience is as a pop culture blogger. Moreover Snopes isn't a newsroom, it's just a hobbyist website that is trying to expand as a commercial entity. The fact it hires people with social media experience and calls them "fact checkers" does not have the same import as when a bona fide journalistic entity hires j-school grads and uses the same terminology. It's not even in the same league as one of the major newspaper-run fact checking sites (Politfact, WaPo Factcheck).

The source's argument itself? Its marquee claim is that the Gatestone report's headline is ever so slightly inaccurate. They corrected it later. Big whoop. The remainder of the article quotes lengthy passages from the ECRI report but identifies no further errors whatsoever by Gatestone. Most of the commentary is actually pretty meaningless. I defy you to state, in plain English, some other criticism of Gatestone from the article that is worth mentioning.

The fact that mainstream sources have ignored this says all we need to know. Factchecker_atyourservice 22:17, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, I don't care if you care. It's your block log, I'm just sayin'. And these are mainstream sources.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:52, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

One more time...

"Inaccurate" does NOT mean the same thing as "false" or "demonstrably untrue". So please stop trying to change it that way. It's at the *very least* WP:WEASEL and really just an outright misrepresentation of the sources.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:18, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Being false or untrue is one way of being inaccurate. The Bloomberg article made it clear that it wasn't completely wrong (a grain of truth) but also not completely correct. Something that is not completely correct is strictly speaking false but there's a difference between missing by an inch and missing by a mile. As long as the source admits there is some truth we should use inaccurate and let the details speak for themselves. Jason from nyc (talk) 15:59, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

No. They mean different things. And sources say "false" and "demonstrably untrue" not "inaccurate" and anything else is just original research.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:14, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

False here is a weasel word. It fails to clearly covey if Gatestone missed by an inch or missed by a mile. You're cherry picking the Bloomberg article to give a false impression. Jason from nyc (talk) 00:44, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Huh? "Demonstrably untrue" and "false" are exactly the words sources use. This whole "missed by an inch or a mile" argument is original research.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:50, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

It also uses the phrase "grain of truth" implying that it isn't completely wrong. You're cherry picking and taking things out of context. See below. Jason from nyc (talk) 01:00, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Lol, *I'm* "cherry picking"? Well, maybe there's a "grain of truth" in that. Come on! You gonna hang your argument on the fact that the source - which describes it as "demonstrably untrue" and "false" also says "grain of truth"? There's a "grain of truth" in the theory that aliens build the Egyptian pyramids since probably there's some grain of rock from a meteor or something in'em.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:49, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Not to mention the concept of "no-go zones" said by Bloomberg to be false is quite different from the one used by the Gatestone report, and none of the surrounding commentary refers to Gatestone, which isn't mentioned til near the end of the article. Factchecker_atyourservice 22:11, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

More original research.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:14, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

It's our duty as editors to understand the article. That's not original research--it is reading comprehension. I just re-read the Bloomberg article and it turns out User:Factchecker_atyourservice is right. The Bloomberg article defines no-go zones as "off-limits to law enforcement and governed by Islamic sharia law." It is this definition that is called totally false. Daniel Pipes is cited as someone who uses the phrase in this sense and says he longer believes it is true. However, when it comes to Gatestone's Kern, Bloomberg says his definition is a weaker one: "Muslim-dominated neighborhoods that are largely off-limits to non-Muslims." This definition isn't called unequivocally false. Jason from nyc (talk) 00:57, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

"It's our duty as editors to understand the article." - Sure, but that's not what you're doing. You're taking a reliable source, and because you disagree with it, you are trying to twist what it says or "critique" it. That's not how an encyclopedia works. If you want to write critiques of published sources you can start a blog and let the world know.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:47, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

It's exactly what we're doing. The source doesn't say what you say it does. Your other comments are silly. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:43, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

@Jason: you can't have this both ways. If Bloomberg's reference to "untrue" was to a slightly different definition of no-go zone, then its reference to "a grain of truth" is also not directly in reference to Gatestone's claims. Please be fair.

Fine! In that case neither "untrue" nor "a grain of truth" can be applied to the Gatestone's formulation and we should leave them both out. Jason from nyc (talk) 10:39, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Secondly, "Muslim-dominated neighborhoods that are largely off-limits to non-Muslims" is not a weaker definition, unless you somehow believe that all the policemen in France are Muslim. They are not. Gatestone's claim would imply that such zones are off-limits to both law enforcement AND ordinary non-Muslim civilians.VR _talk 05:01, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Clearly "largely off-limits" is weaker than completely off-limits. According to Bloomberg, Kern wasn't saying the police can't go in and indeed it has Kern saying that after the 2012 riots, the authorities were trying to re-establish control and institute order. Once again, the article is primarily about others' more excessive claims with Gatestone discussed towards the end, almost in passing. We should omit this source completely. Jason from nyc (talk) 10:39, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

"we should leave them both out." that is not what I meant. Bloomberg's definition is slightly different, yes, but its not totally talking about a different topic.

I don't really follow your logic. Didn't Kern say that non-Muslims can't go in? Isn't it true that most French policemen are non-Muslims? Thus, Kern would be saying that most French policemen can't go in. Kern additionally implied that most non-police French citizens can't go in either. So Kern's claim is stronger.

Also, Miller quotes this 2011 Gatestone article, which says "Many of the "no-go" zones function as microstates governed by Islamic Sharia law." So Gatestone has made such claims. There is no doubt about it.VR _talk 05:57, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

"Largely off-limits to non-Muslims" does not mean "entirely off-limits to police" nor does it imply Sharia law. Even the Bloomberg author does not put these words in Gatestone's mouth. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:22, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

@Jason from nyc: and others: And, just to repeat, Bloomberg itself seems to have cherry picked only those statements by Pipes that help paint the "demonstrably false" picture. He has written at length on the subject, and he ultimately settles on the term "partial no-go zones":

My visits establish that non-Muslim civilians can usually enter majority-Muslim areas without fear. But things look very different from the governmental point of view. On a routine basis, firefighters, ambulance workers, and even social workers meet with hostility and violence. For example, days after I visited the Marseille slum, its residents shot at police preparing for a visit by the prime minister of France. Thus does it and its ilk represent a no-go zone for police, a place which government representatives enter only when heavily armed, in convoys, temporarily, and with a specific mission.

The term no-go zone is informal (apparently deriving from American military argot); dictionaries ascribe it two meanings in line with my conclusions: either (1) ordinary people staying away from an area out of fear or (2) the representatives of the state entering only under exceptional circumstances. ZUS [Wiki note: these are the French zones discussed in the Bloomberg article] do not fit the first description but do fit the second.

Whether or not Molenbeek, Rinkeby, and the Marseilles slum are no-go zones, then, depends on what aspect one choses to emphasize – their accessibility to ordinary visitors at ordinary times or their inaccessibility to government officials in times of tension. There are also no-go gradations, some places where attacks are more frequent and violent, others less so. However one sums up this complex situation – maybe partial-no-go zones? – they represent a great danger.

Looks like the use of Pipes's analysis as a basis for calling the Gatestone report "demonstrably false" or perhaps even just "false" is highly questionable, at best. Factchecker_atyourservice 14:15, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

You really really really really really need to go read WP:NOR again. Not your, or mine, job to interpret and critique reliable sources.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:45, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

The source simply doesn't say what you claim it does. Nor does the policy on OR. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:23, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Snopes

The entire snopes claim seems to be based on an error in the headline. Snopes's own picture shows that Gatestone's original report correctly described the report as containing recommendations and not orders. The later "correction" appears to be just fixing that single word in the title. Careless errors are careless.

More importantly, snopes is not an RS. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:09, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

That's not true. See for instance this discussion]. I'm sure there are editors who agree with you, and of course the forum isn't an RS. And of course no one source is a reliable source for everything. Doug Weller talk 18:01, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

All that shows is that some people like to think of it as RS on certain subjects. In truth, it's a niche site devoted to debunking urban legends and other social phenomena that, so far as I have seen, has zero journalistic bona fides. So while it could be considered RS for discussing slenderman, it's not RS for questioning think tank analyses, and if nobody but Snopes published this dubious analysis, that's a good sign it shouldn't be referenced on WP. Factchecker_atyourservice 18:14, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with your last point. However it's more than a niche site. It's Fake News page for instance. Doug Weller talk 18:15, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

You may be right, but I think that it is attempting to expand outside that niche and trying to grow as a commercial entity. I've seen nothing to suggest equivalence with what we normally call RS's. In my opinion the better frame is to view it as an SPS that happens to be well-regarded within its original niche, but for other purposes it's just an SPS that shouldn't be used as sourcing, less so for a contentious claim. Factchecker_atyourservice 18:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Hey Factchecker_atyourservice. In an above section, "Unnecessary details", I talk about how the Snopes article is a lot more than just an error in Gatestone's headline. Plus Gatestone apologized. Plus Gatestone may even have removed the article.

Also, the claim isn't "contentious", like you say, because no reliable source has disputed it. As I said above, even Gatestone admitted to part of it (and when it did, it failed to challenge the rest of it).VR _talk 23:19, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

The Snopes report itself appears full of errors. (1) Snopes claims the Gatestone report "failed to note" that the recommendations were recommendations, but their own screenshot shows the Gatestone report in fact described them as "recommendations"; (2) the report said the recommendations came from Council of Europe, not the EU, though the headline was incorrect as stated; (3) the "anti-media" vs "balanced" comments don't even make sense—Gatestone said the report blamed tabloids for inciting anti-Muslim violence by mentioning the attacker's religion, and that is what the ECRI report said; (4) the comments about media independence are a bit dubious as they essentially amount to "keep your independence, but do what we say".

"Contentiousness" doesn't refer to whether a claim has been challenged by RS's. A criminal accusation is a good example—always contentious even if it's never been disputed. Anyway, Snopes is not good sourcing for deconstructing politically charged think tank analysis. If this criticism is substantial it will have appeared in mainstream sources. Factchecker_atyourservice 02:24, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

If you think Snopes is not a good source, maybe we should take this back to WP:RSN. But as pointed out above, users do tend to think that it is.

(1) The "failed to note" is regarding EU vs CU, not necessarily about the recommendation vs mandate, (2) so you agree that Gatestone made a false claim?, (3) the report said a lot more than that and Snopes believes Gatestone mischaraterized the report, (4) the report never says "do what we say", it merely recommends - I thought that was clear?

Finally, you need to realize that Gatestone's headline was false, even if we correct for EU and "orders". Nowhere does the report say "Council of Europe Recommends British Press NOT Report when Terrorists are Muslims". It merely recommends a change in emphasis in what is reported.VR _talk 20:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Whoever wrote the headline just misstated what their release actually said. Even before the headline was corrected, apparently the same day, which Snopes doesn't note, the correct information is in their original press release itself, on the same page as the headline. You can see it right in the screenshot, and the Snopes author doesn't bother to explain why he's saying that the report said it was an order when the report doesn't say that. Note this bloggish piece was written the same day by a guy whose main journalistic credential seems to be blogging about "race and pop culture" for the Guardian. No, it's weak sourcing and looks like a badly written piece based on shoddy analysis, more importantly the guy does not have the credentials to meet SPS. Factchecker_atyourservice 23:28, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't look like Gatestone corrected it the same day. The Gatestone article was published on Nov 18. As of Nov 19 the headline was still the same.

Secondly, I'm gonna repeat this once again: Snopes criticizes not just the article headline but the article text too.

In any case, is Gatestone not responsible for its click-baiting headlines? Even if you argue that the author didn't write the headline, presumably someone at Gatestone did. It's not like Gatestone was hacked into and their headline was changed. We are criticizing Gatestone here, not the author.

Regarding the rest of you comment, if you wanna dispute Snopes' reliability, lets take it to WP:RSN. But I'm fairly convinced that Snopes is a well-respected fact checking source.VR _talk 04:29, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

The same web archive shows the same piece with the correct headline and the same date. This archive doesn't tell seem to tell us when the correction occurs. We can only make haphazard guesses from the URLs it seems.

The snopes article does not refer to any text describing the recommendations as mandates. I don't see any such language in the original report -- just the headline. The original report explicitly notes that the British government had already rejected the recommendations. The report makes it clear they are recommendations. The Snopes author, who has no expertise and extremely weak journalism credentials, makes no attempt to explain the obvious contradiction. In the corrected version, the headline is changed and the original (correct) article text about "recommendations" remains unchanged.

Of course Gatestone is responsible for a clickbaity headline, but the substance of the article was correct, they fixed the headline, and none of this changes the fact that the Snopes analysis is bad/wrong, or that the Snopes author doesn't have the credentials to meet WP:SPS. Factchecker_atyourservice 18:53, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Also, about (1), the archived text says EU or European Union three times, so it's not like it's only the headline that suggests that recommendations came from the EU. Sjö (talk) 14:34, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

So you want the article to say that Gatestone was criticized for failing to distinguish between the EU and a recommending body it has chartered? Again, if this criticism is accurate and noteworthy, why is it not being discussed in RS? Factchecker_atyourservice 18:56, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

The Council of Europe is not the same as the EU, nor is it a part of it or chartered by it. And if a reliable source has criticized and article subject we don't require that the criticism is discussed in other RS in order to be included. Sjö (talk) 19:53, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Snopes simply isn't an RS, but I won't argue against the use of Snopes as sourcing for the claim that Gatestone incorrectly identified the source of the recommendations, if that's all we're talking about. Factchecker_atyourservice 20:36, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

As I've pointed out, Snopes rates the Gatestone claim as "false", and bases this on about 3-4 different reasons. Snopes is justified in making all those. If you disagree, you'll have to maybe find sources that back your claim.VR _talk 06:09, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

You've said this so many times, I now ask you to list all of the supposed errors you think the Snopes hack identified. The trivially incorrect headline is one. Anything else?? I'll wait patiently while you struggle to find anything else coherent that was said. There's hardly anything there, certainly nothing worth any serious disucssion. In any event, pasting rhetoric like "Snopes rated the claim false" over such pointless details isn't encyclopedic, it's POV push. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:38, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

I have listed 4 main points Snopes makes. I first made this point on this page on March 24. In fact you even responded to that and then I responded back to you. So its rather strange that you say "Anything else??" Perhaps you have forgotten our earlier discussion?VR _talk 06:11, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

(3) and (4) are nonsense—the source doesn't say those things, and he'd be wrong if he did. Factchecker_atyourservice 18:04, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

What it is and what it does

Near as I can tell, they are unabashedly pro-Israel and feel that Israel is beset by a slew of enemies, primarily Palestinian Arabs (who want to destroy Israel) and other various pro-Islamic and anti-Israeli groups. They feature writes like Daniel Pipes and Alan Dershowitz. Their opponents say they, um, stretch the truth.

Am I getting warm? Is this close to the situation? And if so, what's a good NPOV way to describe them? --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:33, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Well we can only describe them the way reliable sources describe them. And even then, we gotta attribute, like you noted correctly in the section above. Please offer your thoughts in the section above. Thank you!VR _talk 04:57, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Several Reverts without comment

Before I address the summary let's address the body of the article. I made the following three changes that were reverted all at once without comment:

1) I changed the order of statements to fit the chronological and to remove a false sense of causality, [2], with the edit summary "FPM picked them up in 2011 while Pipes recanted in 2013. Change order, remove "nevertheless""

The original read: Gatestone's claims about such zones "appear to have originated" from Daniel Pipes, who later retracted his claims. Nevertheless Gatestone's claims were picked up by many outlets, including FrontPageMag.

The link in the source showed a FrontPageMag article published before Pipes retraction. Thus, the word "nevertheless," which implies FrontPageMag continued to publish despite Pipes' retraction, is erroneous and should be removed. I dropped the world "nevertheless" and changed the order of the two sentences. What's the objection to removing our insertion of the mistaken notion of causality and chronology? Jason from nyc (talk) 10:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

2) In this edit [3] I removed Bloomberg said that reports of "no-go" zones were "demonstrably untrue" with the edit summary "that applies to Emerson, not Kern; see talk." As I said above in the talk, Bloomberg was talking about the definition of "no-go zones" used by Emerson and the earlier Pipes which said that these no-go-zones were run by local inhabitants using Sharia courts and that the French authorities had ceded all control to the locals. This is what was called totally false. Later in the article Bloomberg introduces two different definitions. It says Kern of Gatestone defines no-go zones in terms of ease of access "largely off-limits to non-Muslims" which doesn't imply the "demonstrably untrue" notion that "surrendering neighborhoods to control of Islamist extremists are shocking—and totally false" to use Bloomberg's words. We can't put Emerson's and Pipes' words into Kern's mouth and then, via WP:SYNTHESIS apply to Kern the inference Bloomberg makes to Emerson and Pipes. What's wrong with that? Jason from nyc (talk) 10:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

3) Finally, I took out the statement [4] Gatestone's claims about such zones "appear to have originated" from Pipes because the source is guessing and we're not in the rumor business. Why not? Jason from nyc (talk) 10:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC) I'm sorry, it was the Miller article that uses the words "appear to have originated" while the Bloomberg article merely refers to Pipes' claim that he was the "first to use" the phrase. We had the Miller footnote next to the word "originated" so I looked at that article and saw his full statement. This article is not about Pipes and his unsupported claim to be the originator of "no-go area". Jason from nyc (talk) 10:44, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Are you referring to my edit here? If so...

1. I actually preserved that chronological order that you pointed out. Look carefully. My apologies for putting in the word "Nevertheless". I'm gonna remove it.

2. Nor did I actually put anyone's words in anyone's mouth. The text in my edit says "In 2015, Bloomberg said that reports of "no-go" zones were "demonstrably untrue"." Isn't that exactly what Bloomberg says? Also, I justified this in a comment above, when I said Bloomberg's definition and Gatestone's definition are not really that different. I even gave you a link to the article in which Gatestone uses the Bloomberg definition. Though you may not have read it cause there's a lot of comments back and forth and its easy to miss stuff.

3. I'm not sure what exactly is the objection. "The idea of no-go zones originated from Daniel Pipes" is directly from Bloomberg. And Bloomberg says that Gatestone promoted the idea of no-go zones. That is synthesis done by Bloomberg, so it can't be considered OR. Additionally, saying "appear to have originated" does not imply a rumor. It is like saying "the first known example of..." instead of saying "the first example of...".VR _talk 23:51, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

1. Thanks.

2. I was going by the Bloomberg article without doing original research. Let me get back to this. (I just lost several paragraphs as my Mac crashed trying to post a reply.)

3. Why are we writing about Pipes? Bloomberg says: "Daniel Pipes, a U.S. historian and political commentator, says he believes he was the first person to refer to disadvantaged French neighborhoods as no-go zones." Why do we care about what Pipes claims or speculates. Bloomberg isn't saying Pipes came up with the phrase No-go area in their own voice and our article on No-go zones gives citations prior to Pipes' work. Pipes' role should be discussed in that article. Bloomberg doesn't connect Pipes with Gatestone. We should leave Pipes out. Jason from nyc (talk) 00:25, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

2. Awww, bummer! I hate it when I lose stuff, like say due to Edit conflict. Take your time, man.

3. Do you mean the NYT reference? To me, it seems doubtful that right-wing publications would draw much inspiration from liberal outlets like NYT, and the NYT article only mentions the term in passing and without defining it. That Pipes might be the originator of this has also been supported by The Atlantic, so Bloomberg and Miller aren't alone in making their claim. The Pipes reference is the concept of "no-go zone", not necessarily Gatestone's specific definition of the term. I honestly don't think that Gatestone's concept of no-go zone is all that different from Pipes' concept, beyond some semantics.VR _talk 07:33, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

3. The Atlantic also uses the words "seems to be" when discussing the origination of the idea with Pipes. The NYT does indeed use the phrase in passing but that shows the phrase was in use before Pipes. Was it used differently? Yes and no! When I was young many an ethnic enclave were said to be areas where "you can't go" which obviously wasn't meant literally (and I lived in one.) Even today some areas are said to be ruled by gangs, which also isn't literally true; but like the 1920s, illegal groups could intimidate residents of ethnic ghettos with the police providing insufficient protection. As Factchecker_atyourservice noted above and the Atlantic article mentions, Pipes has a re-reversal which consists in using the weaker sense. He complains that the police aren't adequately responding and pursuing cases of crime in these areas. We also have articles on the Banlieue and French ex-pats here in NYC talk about the areas in this manner long before Pipes. All this has nothing to do with Gatestone regardless of our speculation, insinuation, or OR that Kern was advancing Pipes' concept. An exposition about Pipes doesn't belong in our article even if both Pipes and Kern are mentioned in the same source. Jason from nyc (talk) 10:41, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

3. Ok, so let me see if I understand you. You are making two points. First you are saying that Pipes has retracted his retraction so it would be unwise to simply say he retracted his views without noting his "re-reversal". Secondly you are saying Pipes and Gatestone define no-go zones differently.

On the first point, can you provide some secondary sources for this? The Atlantic's linking to the re-reversal is weird, it actually links to the Bloomberg piece, in which there is no re-reversal.

On the second point, I simply disagree. The differences in the two definitions given in Bloomberg are relatively minor. Hence they are presented as part of a single narrative without further explanation. And if you look at other Gatestone articles written by Kern, its definition is exactly that of Bloomberg (maybe Bloomberg only links to a single article for convenience). Gatestone says (in an article quoted by Miller) ""no-go" zones function as microstates governed by Islamic Sharia law". In another article, Gatestone says "In some no-go zones, host-country authorities are unable or unwilling to provide even basic public aid, such as police...". This is exactly what Bloomberg says: "Muslim-run "no-go zones," off-limits to law enforcement and governed by Islamic sharia law." So I simply don't see any room for doubting this. Also, I've mentioned this before, Gatestone's claim that non-Muslims (police and civilians both) can't enter these zones is a much more ridiculous claim that these zones are only off limit to police or that they're run by Sharia.VR _talk 06:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

You miss my point. This article is about Gatestone not Pipes. What Bloomberg says about Pipes (or Emerson) doesn't belong in our article. You've done original research from primary sources to address the question of what Gatestone's (Kern's) view really are. Even if they are similar or identical to Pipes, Bloomberg doesn't say they are and we aren't entitled to do the comparison based on original research. The question of what Pipes thinks doesn't belong in the Gatestone article. Jason from nyc (talk) 10:29, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

I think that Jason makes sense. David A (talk) 03:52, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, the above was my original research. Hence I left it on the talk page and didn't try to include it in the article. However, Gatestone's views originating from Pipes is not my research. Its Miller's research. And Bloomberg's research. Both sources use "Gatestone" and "Pipes" in the same sentence.

• Miller: "Gatestone's claims about France's Sensitive Urban Zones appear to have originated with the influential neoconservative commentator, Daniel Pipes..."
• Matlick: "After riots broke out in some French suburbs in 2012, analyst Soeren Kern of the Gatestone Institute, a New York-based think tank, wrote that France was trying to "reclaim no-go zones," including the areas that had been listed in Pipes's 2006 report." VR _talk 04:12, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Miller says "appear" to have originated with Pipes. You're asking us to include Miller's speculation that Gatestone got their idea from Pipes. Matlick only notes they are talking about some of the same areas. You still haven't given us sufficient reason to discuss Pipes' views in Gatestone's article. Jason from nyc (talk) 10:19, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I'll pick-up point #2 in the section below. Jason from nyc (talk) 10:41, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I am asking us to include Miller's view. And Matlick also notes that the idea of no-go zones originates from Pipes.

"You still haven't given us sufficient reason to discuss Pipes' views in Gatestone's article." I thought I just did? Let me repeat it: We have two reliable sources discuss use "Gatestone", "no go zones" and "Pipes" in the same sentence. Further, from the context of the sources, it becomes clear that both say that the origin of these claims is Pipes.VR _talk 04:29, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Matlick doesn't "note[] that the idea of no-go zones originates from Pipes". She says that Pipes "says he believes he was the first person to refer to disadvantaged French neighborhoods as no-go zones." Not even remotely the same thing. This was already pointed out to you repeatedly, including in the very same comment you just responded to. As both Jason and I have pointed out, Matlick only notes they are talking about some of the same areas.. And again, the "opendemocracy.net" press release is not appropriate sourcing. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:21, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Mediation or intervention

Hi, guys. I'm a founding member of the Mediation Committee, although I've been hard to find lately. Anyway, I'm good at mediating. Do you want to ask formally for help? Or should I just wade in and make my own brand of "super-NPOV" edits? If it's the later, I intend to bypass a lot of the reversion with the handy, tried-and-true formula of ... wait for it ...

X said Y about Z

What's it going to be? --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:16, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Sure, please do chip in the conversation above. New viewpoints are always welcome!VR _talk 04:27, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

@Ed Poor: I personally don't wish to participate in mediation as IMO this dispute is working its way to a close and mediation would only drag it out. As for a template of "X said Y about Z", in my opinion that's already been tried by myself and Jason. For example, I wrote:

A 2015 article in Bloomberg said that reports of Sharia-run "no-go" areas that police cannot control were "demonstrably untrue" and suggested that a 2012 report published by Gatestone on no-go zones had been based on claims by an American historian and political commentator, Daniel Pipes, which were later retracted.

I later realized that Pipes didn't actually retract his claims, and Bloomberg doesn't quite "suggest" that the Gatestone claims were based on the Pipes claims—rather it only notes that Gatestone talks about some of the same French zones which Pipes noted from the government list of vulnerable neighborhoods—but that's neither here nor there because my prose has been repeatedly reverted in favor of more axe-grinding statements that are not actually made by any of the sources. Nonetheless I'd welcome further input here at Talk on how/whether we could refer to this source material without misrepresenting it. Factchecker_atyourservice 17:15, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I will comment about no-go zones in a new section below. --Uncle Ed (talk) 12:28, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

What Daniel Pipes said about no-go zones

It wasn't too hard to find this description:

• ... governments often choose not to impose their will on Muslim-majority areas, allowing them considerable autonomy, including in some cases the Shariah courts that Emerson mentioned. Alcohol and pork are effectively banned in these districts, polygamy and burqas commonplace, police enter only warily and in force, and Muslims get away with offenses illegal for the rest of population. [5]

The same web page talks about what these areas have been called, including:

• Zones Urbaines Sensibles
• no-go zones
  1. I have had second thoughts. I found that those areas "are not full-fledged no-go zones" --- meaning places where the government had lost control of territory. No war lords dominate; Shari'a is not the law of the land. I expressed regret back then for having used the term no-go zones.
  2. The English language lacks a readily-available term for this. And for good reason: I know of no historical parallel, in which a majority population accepts the customs and even the criminality of a poorer and weaker immigrant community.
• semi-autonomous sectors or partial no-go zones

Okay, so that's what Pipes (and others) have called them. There's also some talk about the degree to which the authorities have ceded authority. Not fully, as some newspapers have wildly said - perhaps to attract readers. But Pipes cites cases where the authorities choose not to intervene against crimes such as kidnapping.

As you can see, I am not exactly diving into the cold waters here, but chipping away at the top of one iceberg. --Uncle Ed (talk) 12:39, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Is it pro-Israel?

Maybe it's not right to call the Gatestone Institute "pro-Israel" if this makes it seem to be taking one side all the time. Based on a quick read of a description of  Nina Rosenwald in The Nation [6], however, we might point out the the GI website often features article written from a pro-Israeli perspective. Would this be okay, Snoogan? --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:19, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Doesn't the source describe her as pro-Israel and one GI writer (Dershowitz) as pro-Israel? I'm not disputing that GI is pro-Israel, I just want it to be reliably sourced. If the Nation piece says that GI is pro-I, think it should be phrased as "According to Max Blumenthal of the Nation, GI is pro-Israel". The one big longstanding flaw with this Wikipedia article has been how some editors keep inserting stuff that's OR or not sourced to secondary sources. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:35, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I get it. This is not a dispute over a fact; rather, it is a push for proper sourcing of the fact. This makes more sense, as I would not like the lead sentence in an article about a controversial group to based entirely on my own subjective impression of a random selection of its writings that happened to catch my eye. (And by the way, I'm no longer a bureaucrat - not that having been one ought to give me more editorial clout. Whew!) --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:44, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

So how about funded by the pro-Israeli Sears-Roebuck heiress Nini Rosenwald - or something a little less clumsy? I couldn't find anything online to support the pro-Israeli description of GI itself. Anyway, is this the biggest issue we contributors are hashing out? --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:49, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

We have a whole article about Nina Rosenwald and everything she funds. We have very little on Gatestone and much of that is just a sentence or paragraph in passing (aside from Gatestone's own website.) We should avoid original research as much as possible. Jason from nyc (talk) 15:03, 21 April 2017 (UTC)