Talk:Michael Elston

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OIG proceeding

Note: this was originally posted on my talk page:

The edit you reversed based on an OIG report is inaccurate. When the issues that were the subject of that report were litigated before the bar with jurisdiction, the subject was cleared. Although bar proceedings are confidential, the fact is that the OIG allegations were not proven. Kckid1971 (talk) 12:47, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Kckid1971: Thanks for the response and welcome to Wikipedia. There's a lot of Wikipedia policies that govern the content and I know it can be kind of Kafkaesque dealing with faceless editors representing Wikipedia's faceless "bureaucracy", in a system where the rules are as innumerable as they are arcane. So I want to welcome you (and not bite the newcomers) and say that I hope we can work together on improving this article. I am a real person on the other end of the keyboard and do this on a wholly volunteer basis. My only goal is to build a better encyclopedia. Lots of Wikipedians can be prickly, which can be unpleasant for newcomers, so I thought I'd give you a friendly greeting before addressing the substance of your response. Without further ado:

The excised sentence is a clearly sourced statement of fact: "In June 2008, the OIG issued a separate report concluding that Elston had violated federal law by taking political affiliations into account when screening hires for the department." This remains true whether or not Elston was ultimately exonerated. If a coroner issues a death certificate for a living person, no correction or retraction negates the fact that the original (mistaken) death certificate was issued.
Any subsequent exoneration must be verifiable with a reliable source (i.e. good sources to make sure the article fulfills the requirements for Biographies of Living Persons). I'd be glad to add a source that Elston was cleared of the charges listed in the OIG report; it would help if you can dig up any reliable sources that would verify his exoneration, but claiming Elston was exonerated without a source would be original research.
We should not try and right great wrongs, so even if we have "inside" information that the subject was cleared of the OIG's allegations, we need to wait until this exoneration has been published.
I'm not familiar with the confidentiality rules of the DC Bar Association's proceedings, but if you have definitive inside information here that Elston was "cleared" (like you stated), I'd exercise caution before editing the page. Someone who is privy to the content of the DC Bar's proceedings regarding Michael Elston might have a conflict of interest for having ties to the subject of the article.

I will do some research and see what else I can do to improve this article. Again, welcome to Wikipedia and I look forward to collaborating with you.-Ich (talk) 14:38, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]