[WikiEN-l] Verifiability - Case Study II

[charles matthews]

This is about [[Mark Steyn]]. There are two types of major issue with this 
page.

(I) Scope for scepticism.  As it now says immediately after the lead, there 
is actually a dearth of personal details on Steyn.  No date nor birth nor 
place of birth; no educational details, beyond the fact that he supposedly 
left school at 16.  How do we even know he's really Canadian?  This is one 
for SlimVirgin then; given no reasonable way to check, do we need to see his 
passport?  :Plenty of Google hits for "Mark Steyn, a Canadian".  I'm not 
going to worry about this, and sourcing it; are the fanatics for 
verification, though?

As for the rest of Steyn's life, it is about his media jobs and association 
with Conrad Black and Hollinger, which is all fairly straightforward.

(II) Issues around NPOV.  This is where the real meat is.  Quoting directly 
from Steyn's columns is easy, but on its own is not enough for a WP article 
about a figure who revels in controversy.  Just about every whisper of 
criticism of Steyn on the page has been subject to close attention from fans 
of his, who tend to cut first and ask for sources afterwards.  There have 
been also some insertions by critics which were not well sourced.

Breaking it down by topics:

(a) USA and Europe.  There is not much left of this, just the one quote from 
[[Peter Preston]] towards the end, sourced from The Observer.  There used to 
be more about Steyn on Europe's attitudes to armed forces post-WWII.  It was 
cut a while ago and not replaced.

(b) Steyn's long-standing claims that Bin Laden is quite obviously dead. 
This is mentioned in the terms that Private Eye satirises him for that. 
Someone on the Talk page said that he had dropped this, which dates from 
2002 or so; no source provided, and I showed him still at it in 2004.  He's 
clearly not going to retract, so how long can we claim that he continues to 
think Bin Laden is dead?  Strictly, we can't.  I don't think we really need 
to reference issues of Private Eye in which he is mocked for this, but 
perhaps others disagree.

(c) Allegations of Islamophobia.  There are three typical areas about this, 
and the material on the page appears to revolve.  The points are

- claims that Steyn reported as factual some wild rumours about Muslims in 
New York shortly post-9/11, and supporting critical column by Johann Hari, 
with web reference on the latter (we have had some edit-warring on whether 
direct, sourced critical quotes from Hari should be on the page)
- Steyn's use of ancient anti-Islamic quotes from Winston Churchill 
(seemingly from Churchill's impressions of fighting in the Sudan pre-1900)
- aggressive comparisons by Steyn of Anglospheric and Islamic cultures, in 
sweeping terms.

These can all be properly sourced, so really this should be respectable NPOV 
coverage and allowed to stand without mauling around.  I expect more 
drive-by edits, though.

(d) 'Commitment to Democracy questioned'.  This is the active area, with a 
paragraph cut out recently by User:Mitchberg (discussion on Talk page).

It was alleged in an earlier edit, that 'critics of Steyn' have questioned 
his commitment to democracy; because relative to Bush-Kerry, Steyn had said 
Kerry was foolish to have said that Bush should have propped up Aristide in 
Haiti.  The quote from Steyn was provided, and says just that.  It was a bit 
selective of that column, which has to be read in full to see what Steyn was 
arguing (Martha Stewart was innocent, so state power needs opposition from 
'civil society' to be legitimate).

The debate itself is for politics buffs (so, we have to say Hamas and Fatah 
is more about democracy, than Aristide and the downtrodden Haitians?).  The 
verifiability issue is like this, though:  to claim that 'critics of Steyn' 
alleged something we should source those critics.  What are the criteria? 
Well, random bloggers are not really up to the current standards.  We don't 
need to doubt that people do criticise Steyn this way; but undoubtedly we 
get a better article by being specific about this, and giving at least one 
respectable example of such a critic.

That's why the para on this is not back on the page.  Since Steyn is such a 
vocal pro-US-Republican writer, it is certainly a shame that the one quote 
on the page that refers directly to US domestic politics has gone.  Could 
the bit about 'critics of Steyn' be just omitted?  Yes, but then it reads 
oddly, and there really does need to be a more developed discussion about 
what Steyn's views are (he gets called a neocon, but this is not properly 
entered into).

There are secondary points, and what User:Mitchberg says on the Talk relates 
to those.  He's (I assume male and) a self-confessed newbie, so he makes one 
mistake, in that he tries to refute the criticism of Steyn.  That's not a 
reason for cutting out criticism (in the way that the lack of a proper 
source actually is).  He also doesn't really take the point that the quote 
is selective.  He goes on to say that he has interviewed Steyn, and knows 
from that that Steyn is committed to democracy.  To do him justice, he isn't 
putting that wrongly as an argument; but he is also apparently not seeing 
that if he has an interview, and has published it, that would constitute a 
proper source for the article.

This discussion is a bit stalled right now.  I don't really want to spend 
for ever researching the critics of Steyn, and there is the rhetorical point 
about whether 'commitment to liberty' now trumps 'commitment to democracy' 
for American conservatives (with the implications for 'civil society' as  a 
prerequisite).  This is interesting stuff, but needs first-rate sources.  So 
there is the verifiability issue in practice, again, of What Is An 
Acceptable Source?

Charles