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*'''No''' -- excessive intricate detail; there's already too much of it in the article. ] (]) 21:00, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
*'''No''' -- excessive intricate detail; there's already too much of it in the article. ] (]) 21:00, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
::{{re|K.e.coffman}} What the article really needs is balance. While the article should be substantially shortened (it's become a coatrack for everything Russia-related in US politics), we shouldn't be excluding ''only'' material which is critical of the allegations made by US intelligence agencies. The significant criticism of US intelligence reports should be noted in the article. The article is chock-full of lengthy quotes from US intelligence, and has a separate section for nearly every single allegation that some person is connected to Russia. Until that bloat is addressed, I don't think we should be paring down the underrepresented dissenting viewpoints. -] (]) 20:14, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
===Discussion===
===Discussion===
*If we have one bunch of "industry outsiders" opinions I see no reason why we should not have another.] (]) 12:55, 17 April 2017 (UTC):However your text, I think, does not reflect very well what the source says.] (]) 12:59, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
*If we have one bunch of "industry outsiders" opinions I see no reason why we should not have another.] (]) 12:55, 17 April 2017 (UTC):However your text, I think, does not reflect very well what the source says.] (]) 12:59, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
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I think everyone who has been involved here for a while understands that there are serious disputes about POV in this article. But just to summarize some of those disputes briefly:
First off, there have been several RfC's on the article's title which have failed to reach any consensus, with editors split on whether the title is a NPOV violation. In my judgment, the declarative nature of the title, which lacks the word "alleged" or "allegations," used by many reliable sources, violates NPOV.
Next, there is the issue of the lede, which is largely a repetition of official US government positions, which barely mentions the Russian government position, and which leaves out Wikileaks' statements entirely.
Thirdly, there is the systematic removal of experts and commentators who have expressed doubt about US government claims of Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential election.
This is soooo last December. There is no RS reporting today that contradicts the neutral tone of the article. WP does not give "equal time" to fringe or self-serving denials of the facts as they are now known and reported. SPECIFICOtalk21:23, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Quite the opposite: the "overwhelming consensus of 17 intelligence agencies" has been more and more put in doubt since December. That's a fact too. The narrative in reliable sources has moved away from "Russia totally stole the election" towards "Putin wanted to weaken Clinton no matter whether she would get elected", from "Trump is a Putin puppet, actively sabotaging democracy" towards "some Trump campaign people possibly colluded with Russia", and finally "Flynn spoke to the Russian ambassador during the transition and resigned, this is proof!".
Did Flynn manipulate the election with a time machine? Did Trump's failed or cancelled real estate deals in Russia give him an unfair advantage with Pennsylvania voters? Did Putin exert mind control or kompromat on the Hillary people to prevent them from campaigning in the "blue wall" states which eventually gave Trump the presidency by thin margins?
Many experts have commented that the "evidence" provided in all those reports is questionable, made up of inferences and fearmongering. Sure, RT is not exactly US-friendly, so what? Is CNN accused of treason in Russia for not being exactly Russia-friendly?
Three separate investigations are ongoing, including the one by the FBI since July, and none of them found any solid evidence of anything; they keep chewing on the same allegations first raised in June 2016 when it was revealed the DNC got hacked. Nobody knows who hacked them; even the intelligence community witnesses admit that they don't have proof beyond "similarities" with "typical" Russian means of action.
Meanwhile, Wikileaks has shown how the CIA can easily spoof Russian, Chinese or Korean attacks, and I'm sure the Russians or the Chinese can also conduct their cyberespionage without leaving blatant traces. Those are also "facts known and reported", it's a bit too easy to just call them fringe. However, I have given up on this article; pardon my rant and enjoy your tunnel vision… — JFG23:09, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
"the "overwhelming consensus of 17 intelligence agencies" has been more and more put in doubt since December. " - Huh? Wait, hold, on... HUH? No, no it hasn't. Are you saying that now these intelligence agencies are saying that Russia DIDN'T hack the DNC? Because if that's your claim, I want to see those sources. You seem to be saying that because this whole thing has blown up with all kinds of OTHER shady stuff coming out the original, fairly mild claim "Russia interfered", is no longer valid. That's ass backwards buddy.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:35, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Don't put words in my mouth (or don't hack my keyboard!): I'm not claiming that IC agencies have changed their stance, I'm claiming that many credible sources have put several elements of their inferences in doubt, with inferences of their own that are at least as plausible. After each crescendo report comes out, a litany of people pick it apart and see nothing new, nothing substantial. The strongest claim I've seen from the IC reports is "RT is a propaganda arm of the Kremlin"; well duh, like people need a lecture on disinformation by the CIA to understand this basic reality? And the only responses have been "we have proof but we can't show it" or "how dare anyone question the brave and infallible US Intelligence Community" or "look, facts are here, why deny the obvious" (a favorite line of John McCain). Month after month after month of weaseling and harping on the Trump / Russia connection. Where's the beef? Obviously, it's not for us lowly Wikipedians to judge who's right, but IT IS OUR JOB to depict a fair balance of the various theories and viewpoints that have been put forward by credible people (and before you yell fringe, I'm not referring to nutjobs here). — JFG22:25, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Seeing as how I quoted you directly, it's sort of... pointless for you to claim that I am "putting words in your mouth", no? And that's some interesting original research but actually this article right here, and the dozens of reliable sources within it are a pretty clear proof that it's just not true that, ahem, let me quote you again "The strongest claim" IS THAT "RT is a propaganda arm of the Kremlin". I mean, come on! At the very least admit that the hacking of the DNC - which, again, one more time, let me repeat, even the Trump team acknowledges was done by Russia - is a "stronger claim". Or that hackers accessed voter registration rolls. Or that troll accounts specifically targeted certain demographics in certain states to tip the election. Or that several Trump associates had meetings with Russian intelligence agents or officials (and a few of them lied about it). I mean there stuff coming out every few days - Erik Prince setting up meetings came out today. Or Carter Page being recruited by Russian intelligence. Sorry. This "oh it's only RT" is just obfuscation.Volunteer Marek (talk) 02:54, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
This talk page is about what's actually in the article and what mainstream RS say. It's not about whatever nonsense is on American cable tv or clickbait sites from day to day. The OR "rant" is not useful for editors here. I congratulate you on having decided to move on. SPECIFICOtalk23:24, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Nothing I wrote here is OR (except the rhetorical questions), but you don't like the sources. When Clapper says something that goes your way, it must be quoted in full and prominently displayed in the lead; when he says something that goes the opposite way, it's fringe, undue and buried in a subsection. We've been through these conversations so many times that I have just about given up bringing a modicum of balance to this trainwreck of an article. So allow me to congratulate you in turn: your persistence has paid off. Let me know when is your birthday and I'll send you a "Nevertheless, she persisted" t-shirt. — JFG23:38, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: @SPECIFICO: Let's keep this on subject. I think we can all acknowledge that there's a serious dispute on this page about POV. I'd like to discuss how to address it.
I'll go first: the lede needs more balance. Right now, it focuses almost solely on statements made by US government officials. For greater balance, it needs more detail on the Russian response - the short sentence there isn't enough. Additionally, it should include the statement made by Assange about the leaks not coming from Russia, since he's a central figure in this subject, and his statement received widespread coverage. All in all, the lede should also be much shorter. The details can be left to the body of the text. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:00, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
The lede is fine. "Balance" appears to be an excuse for "let me add some undue weight". Yes, Russia denied it. It's already there. You want eight different ways of saying they denied it? Why? Lede is fine.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:36, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Here is the shortened and (in my modest opinion) neutral lead section that I wrote from scratch as an exercise a few weeks ago, when discussing the long-term perspective of this article:
Following the publication of DNC internal communications by WikiLeaks in June and October 2016, several US intelligence agencies affirmed that Russia had attempted to intervene in the presidential election, indicating a preference for candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. In retaliation, President Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and expanded sanctions to individuals linked with the Russian secret service. Russia has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Trump dismissed the allegations of Russian meddling as partisan fodder. Upon taking office he vowed to work with Russia constructively while maintaining a strong defense of American interests. Accusations of collusion between Trump campaign members and Russian officials are under investigation by the Senate and House intelligence committees. Cybersecurity experts are divided about the relevance of technical elements linking the DNC intrusions to Russian hacker groups. Some intelligence officials are wary that President Trump may not trust their reports at face value. The controversy has sparked intense media interest and scrutiny of all parties involved.
Feel free to tweak and get ready for prime time. Each sentence can be easily sourced, although I believe that a lead section without sources is easier to read; there are plenty enough sources in the article body. We should add FBI to the "ongoing investigations" phrase now that it has been revealed. — JFG00:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Pardon, but I’m having difficulty understanding your point, and your complaints seem too general for response. As for statements by Assange, some mention may be acceptable. But, he is hardly a reliable source for anything. I don’t see how we can add more on the Russian response since it’s basically: It didn’t happen. The lead (lede) is likely too long. But, it’s a complex subject. (Note: I had an edit conflict with JFG and will wait for your response before….) Objective3000 (talk) 00:28, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
@Objective3000: "But, he is hardly a reliable source for anything." A lot of editors here misunderstand what WP:RS means. It does not mean that we cannot quote people who may have an agenda. It simply means that anything the article states has to be well sourced. The fact that Assange said Russia is not the source for the leaks is documented by many reliable sources, so there's absolutely no WP:RS problem with quoting Assange. The only question, then, is whether Assange's statement is undue, and I can't see how it could possibly be argued that it is. His statement was covered widely by the press, and as the head of Wikileaks, he's a central figure in the story. The fact that his statement isn't covered in the lede is a major POV problem. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:22, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
@Objective3000: You say of Assange: he is hardly a reliable source for anything. He is by definition a RS for his own positions, and those have been pretty consistent all along. And I may add that irrespective of their political opinions, Wikileaks is a pretty damn reliable source for whatever they leak: none of the documents released over the last 10 years have been proven false or doctored; they have been consistently authentic and embarrassing to whoever they were stolen from, and that's the whole point. As I wrote in the RfC, it doesn't matter what WP editors think about Assange's credibility, but as it happens, Assange and WikiLeaks have a pretty long track record of publishing leaked documents that were proven to be authentic and truthful, irrespective of the political consequences involved: Cablegate, Iraq War Logs, Stratfor emails, TPP draft, etc. Uncomfortable? Certainly. Partisan? Probably. Credible? Definitely. — JFG10:06, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
PS: Not to redo the RfC here (I have requested a closer), but please note that in my short lead proposal I do not include Assange, however in the current super-long lead, his statements would deserve a few words. — JFG05:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
none of the documents released over the last 10 years have been proven false or doctored An absurd statement, because to "prove" the veracity of a stolen document requires you to steal the same yourself and compare. It does matter what we think about Assange's credibility, because we have discretion as to whether mentioning him is WP:UNDUE or not. Further, the bulk of reliable sources don't seem to be finding him that credible, at least compared with the attention he gets compared to the IC/USG sources. Maybe that's the reason some think this article is unfair? Take that up with the sources! Geogene (talk) 11:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Not necessarily. In espionage matters, the lack of blanket denials often proves the authenticity of the documents. They can be cross-checked and corroborated with other sources or through the lens of history, as happened with the diplomatic cables. The Iraq war logs were acknowledged as authentic raw data and the leaker was jailed as a traitor for threatening the security of military personnel, which wouldn't be an issue if the documents were fake. None of the Snowden disclosures has been proven wrong or doctored, in fact most of what has been published was later verified on the ground. And in some cases even stolen documents can be proven authentic without "stealing them yourself", e.g. Podesta emails were proven authentic by Google's own DKIMcryptographic signatures, which can't be forged if any bit of the original message is changed. — JFG23:21, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
You added the templates and then "POV dispute" to the Talk page. Shouldn't you have gone to the Talk page first and waited for the outcome of the alleged POV dispute discussion? Aside from having been over this over and over again, moving of the page having been endorsed, ... Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 07:29, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
The POV dispute tags merely reflect the fact that there is a dispute over NPOV on this page. The tag is supposed to be added when such a dispute exists, while the discussion over POV is ongoing. I think everyone can agree that there is a dispute over POV here. As far as POV goes, this is probably one of the most heavily disputed pages on Misplaced Pages. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
It's trivially easy to generate artificial "disputes" on the talk page by engaging in a lot of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Which is what you're doing here. That is why the POV tag needs to be substantiated - which means you either show everyone some sources or you leave it alone.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:41, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
The dispute isn't artificial. Just look through the talk page and the archives, and there's no doubt that many editors feel this article is strongly biased. If the POV dispute tag is inappropriate on this page, then there's no page on Misplaced Pages on which it's appropriate. This is probably one of the most contentious articles on the whole project. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Considering that you guys are even questioning whether reliable sources actually say that Russia interfered in the election (of course they freakin' do!) when even the Trump administration concedes as much... yeah, the dispute is artificial. Like I said, it's time to drop the stick and step away from the dead parrot.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:08, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
I presented a random sampling of sources a while back, and that sampling showed that most sources use some variation on "alleged," "allegations," or "sources claim." You like to cite WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, which describes your reaction to my findings pretty well. In any case, I think it's obvious there's a POV dispute here, both over content and the title, which makes your removal of the POV tags inappropriate. Please restore them. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:08, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Uno: "random" is nonsense. You drew them blindfolded out of a hat? Dos: You need to look at recent RS text that reflects current mainstream presentation unless you're editing the wayback machine. Tres: "sources claim" ?? 🐵. SPECIFICOtalk
"Random" as in not cherry-picked. They were the first hits on a Google search. I told you, at the time, what search term I used. I also presented the top hits from two major foreign-language newspapers: Le Monde and the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The results showed that most reliable sources were not presenting "Russian interference" as a fact. They described it as an allegation/claim made by American officials.
But just to reiterate: there is a POV dispute here. That means the tags have to go back. After that, we can discuss individual POV problems in the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:44, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
If you're not prepared to respond to the statements of your fellow editors here, discussion is pointless. WP doesn't do "random" google that for starters. SPECIFICOtalk11:16, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
POV reflects that of the bulk of reliable sources. Some may not like that they give the intelligence community/non-WH US government officials a lot of credibility, and Assange relatively little, but this is not the forum for that. We could remove him completely. Geogene (talk) 11:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
We've been over this many, many times. Most reliable sources refer to "allegations of" or "alleged" Russian interference in the US Presidential election. This article states the claims of US intelligence agencies much more definitively than most reliable sources do. As for Assange, what he said received very broad coverage, yet is hardly mentioned in this article at all. Very broadly, almost every critical opinion or assessment has been removed from the article. Finally, looking at the lede, all but 12 words of it discuss US government positions on the subject. There's a massive slant in this article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:14, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, yes we have been over this, so why are still you doing the whole WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT thing? Peppering the article with "alleged" is a violation of... well, WP:ALLEGED and it's a clear attempt to weasel this. For fuck's sake, even Trump administration now admits that Russia interfered. You really need to back away from this dead horse.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
And oh yeah, "all but 12 words of it discuss"... what reliable sources say. The fact you want to slap in some of your own personal OR isn't here nor there.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:43, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
I would agree, broadly, that this article does a very poor job of relaying uncertainty by mainstream media and commentators over allegations of Russian hacking. One egregious POV violation, and an example of very poor writing, is the first paragraph: simple a very long quote of a report by US intelligence agencies. This would be absurd for an article on allegations from any other country. -Darouet (talk) 16:04, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
There are still plenty of news agencies that routinely refer to this as "alleged Russian interference," or possible Russian hacking." -Darouet (talk) 12:59, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I think (and just to be clear: I don't really agree with this; I just want to get editors on the same page) Darouet is suggesting it's a POV problem from a country perspective (the United States says Russia intervened; Russia says they did not ... we spend two paragraphs talking about the U.S. says before, at the end of the third paragraph, mentioning that Russia denies the claim), which is why mentioning that the Trump administration concurs isn't satisfying him.
One note: the Assange issue is closed. There was just an RFC on this. It's not really appropriate to say "Well I don't like the RFC outcome ... so there's still a POV dispute tag!" --216.12.10.118 (talk) 00:45, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
The POV dispute goes far beyond just the placement of the Russian response or the Assange statement, although those are, of course, part of the POV dispute (on a side note, the fact that so many editors explicitly argued that Assange's statement shouldn't be included because it would undermine claims made by US intelligence points to the glaring problem here - highly politicized editing). I listed some of the elements of the dispute at the top of this section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:08, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
But of course, that view would be incorrect, which is why we operate on consensus and don't need to spend undue effort on bringing up the rear. The tag is garbage, but it apparently brings great solace to comrades in a time of grief. SPECIFICOtalk00:56, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
I do not see any serious POV problems on the page and do not see them convincingly explained above. Here is what people who complain about POV are trying to include on the page. But let's check the "criticism" source they are quoting. It actually tells in the end (a kind of conclusion) the following: "In its report last June attributing the Democratic hacks, CrowdStrike said it was long familiar with the methods used by Fancy Bear and another group with ties to Russian intelligence nicknamed Cozy Bear. Soon after, U.S. cybersecurity firms Fidelis and Mandiant endorsed CrowdStrike’s conclusions. The FBI and Homeland Security report reached the same conclusion about the two groups. Still, some cybersecurity experts are skeptical ...". This page tells basically the same. My very best wishes (talk) 02:37, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
You may not see any serious POV problems, but editors here do, and have raised these issues on the talk page over the past few months. With the talk page and archives, I don't see how you can possibly claim that the neutrality of this article is not disputed.
The dispute might not exist if you and several other editors had been more amenable to compromise with editors who don't share your particular viewpoint, but you've molded the article into a hyper-partisan form. The lede is essentially a long recapitulation of US government claims, and throughout the article, almost every commentary that at all questions the views expressed by US intelligence has been removed.
No. I checked instruction and have to admit that #2 applies here: "It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given.". That's why I think the tag was correctly removed by someone. My very best wishes (talk) 05:26, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
It cannot possibly be unclear to you what the neutrality issue is. I gave a bullet point of the top issues above, and several other editors raised additional issues. The way that you and Marek are dismissing the existence of a dispute over neutrality is pretty insulting to all the editors here who have raised issues with the POV of the article. You can't simply pretend we're not raising issues. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:31, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
Sorry to disagree. Your point #1. No, there were RfC with definite conclusion, such as this. Having RfC with any outcomes does not prove the existence of POV problems on the page. Your point #2. No, the denial by Russia was mentioned in the lead. Yes, the lead can be made shorter, but this is hardly a POV problem. #3. No, the views by Russian government and Assange are prominently present in their own sections: , . I do not see any obvious POV problems. My very best wishes (talk) 14:16, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
You can't just run around in circles with fingers in your ears yelling "it's disputed! it's disputed! it's disputed!" and then tag shame the article. This has been discussed ad nauseum. You don't have consensus. The NPOV tag is not a "I didn't get my way cuz stupid consensus was against me" tag. Tag shaming an article with a spurious NPOV tag is not a consolation prize you get when you've failed to achieve consensus for your edits.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:13, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
The tag indicates that the neutrality of the article is disputed. Just read through the talk page above, and look through the archives. How can you seriously claim that the article's neutrality is not disputed? This isn't "shaming" the article. It's noting the fact that the article's neutrality is heavily disputed by a large number of editors. It's pretty disrespectful to all of us who have been editing here, and who dispute the neutrality of the article, to claim that there's no dispute. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
The result of the various RfCs was that editors are strongly divided on whether the article is neutral. In other words, the neutrality of the article is disputed. I don't have to yell "DISPUTE!" Just read above, and then tell me there isn't a dispute. If this page isn't disputed, then we should just do away with the POV tag altogether on Misplaced Pages, because there are few pages whose neutrality is more contentious than that of this page. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:18, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
It isn’t likely that the consensus wording in this article, or any of the articles relating to recent politics, will ever satisfy everyone. That is, someone will always “dispute” the article on POV grounds. That, in itself, is not grounds for a POV tag. Otherwise, WP would be littered with tags and they would not serve their purpose of starting discussion. Objective3000 (talk) 12:55, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
It's not just that we haven't satisfied everyone. It's that nearly half of the active editors here think this article egregiously violates WP:NPOV. "Otherwise, WP would be littered with tags and they would not serve their purpose of starting discussion." On the entire project, I don't think there are many pages whose neutrality is more heavily disputed than that of this article. If the POV tag doesn't apply here, we should just eliminate the tag altogether from Misplaced Pages. You keep talking as if this is just my quibbling with the article. Just look above, and you'll see that there are many editors who have been arguing for months that this article has extremely serious WP:NPOV problems, and that those concerns have been basically run over roughshod by another group of editors. An ounce of respect for all the editors who have voiced opposition to the way the article has been formulated would require you to at least acknowledge that there is a dispute. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:23, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
If you wish to change consensus, or claim consensus doesn’t exist, you are going to have to change your tact. It isn’t working. Just some practical advice. Objective3000 (talk) 00:01, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the practical advice. If it were genuine, I would take it more seriously, but you're playing a pretty transparent game here. Almost every single edit I've made to this article has been reverted. The justifications for the reverts change, and the rationales flip 180 degrees when convenient, with the only consistency being that any material that is at all critical of US government claims is removed, and the article is stuffed with ever more poorly written bloat.
The neutrality of this article is heavily disputed, not just by me, but by somewhere around half of the editors who have been active here. If you were actually willing to engage with us on the neutrality issues, I would consider your personal advice (vague as it was - I didn't actually see any advice, other than that I should make an unspecified change in "tact"). But your refusal to acknowledge even that there is a neutrality dispute doesn't give me much hope that you'd ever be willing to give any consideration to the objections raised by numerous editors here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:37, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
For the record, I have no time to engage further but I endorse Thucydides411's assertion that this article is one of the most highly disputed in all Misplaced Pages. When stating that simple fact is called "tag-shaming", all hope for neutrality is lost. The state of this article is shameful indeed. I would advocate a clean start per WP:TNT. The situation and the scandal(s) can probably be summarized in a clean and short article under 10 kB of prose, unfortunately everybody here wants to add their preferred WP:NEWS material and conspiracy bloat (I'm talking about both "sides"). Hopeless. — JFG09:53, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
I don’t know what “transparent game” I’m playing as I’ve made zero edits or reverts to this article. I don’t think discussion is going to be useful without assuming good faith. As I said, your tact isn’t working. Objective3000 (talk) 11:12, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
The article indicates the U.S. has ‘concluded' that Russia interfered with U.S. elections. Russia has denied that (thought that denial is buried deep in the article). Of the 222 cites, 3 are from Russia. Is that not biased? Humanengr (talk) 17:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
So RS's are determined by where the hack occurred?? Where is that in the policies? If an attack occurred on a spacecraft in near-earth orbit, would there be no sources? Humanengr (talk) 18:00, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
No, it means that it is going to get a lot of coverage in the USA, and this is the English language Wiki so people will tend to use English language sources. It is not a bias on the part of Misplaced Pages or it's edds, it is availability. Now what do you think needs a Russian source?Slatersteven (talk) 18:12, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
So your first reason ("As the Hack occurred in the USA") failed. The next reason is false on its face. "this is the English language Wiki so people will tend to use English language sources". That's 'bias'. You: "It is not a bias on the part of Misplaced Pages or it's edds, it is availability." Not true. Does it not strike you as odd that Russia Today gets only unfavorable mention? Humanengr (talk) 18:28, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
That's correct. A different Russian source may be reliable. Just like there's plenty of American sources which are not reliable.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:42, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Per guidelines laid out at WP:RS, specifically the lack of "reputation for fact checking and accuracy". You can also look through the archives of WP:RSN to read past discussions. RT may be reliable for simple non controversial statements or official statements from Russian (and other officials). Though in that case, why not just find a better source, if it's non controversial? Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:06, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Incorrect. And once you start it with the loaded leading questions further discussion is sort of pointless since you've obviously ditched good faith.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Are you referring to this: "Of the 222 cites, 3 are from Russia. Is that not biased?" If so, how is that 'loaded'? Humanengr (talk) 23:53, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Dear Human. You are repeatedly asking leading questions with embedded misrepresentations of the persons to whom you address them. This is not constructive. Please reflect and desist. Others will speak for themselves, and those who disagree with you are not apt to jump through hoops no matter how eagerly you hold them. SPECIFICOtalk01:28, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Err, the fact it occurred in the USA means that US sources will cover it most, that is not admitting a failure, that is explaining why US sources are mostly used.Slatersteven (talk) 10:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Specific objections
This is getting rather long, rambling and unspecific.
If there is a problem with using predominantly US (or English) sources can we have some examples of RS here and what they support in the text?Slatersteven (talk) 10:16, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Thx for asking. It’s a combination of reframing by RS and further reframing by editors.
The 1st sentence says “The United States Intelligence Community has officially concluded that …”. That sentence cites an article headlined "U.S. government officially accuses …” which is a strengthening (though understandable by itself) of the 10/7/2016 DNI report it cites which states “The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident …”.
But the title of the article takes it a step further and presents “Russian interference” as fact when, in fact, it has not been established ‘as fact’.
The 2nd sentence says "expressed 'high confidence’” directly citing the 1/6/2017 DNI report. The title is similarly not justified by this cite or any other.
Beyond that, the entire intro speaks in terms of investigations. It is a fact that there are investigations. And that fact should be reflected in the title. Humanengr (talk) 04:14, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Resolution
There seems to be a slow edit war over these tags. Based on the comments above, there seems to be minimal support for the OP's assertion that the article reflects a specific POV not supported by the majority of sources in the article itself. If the issue is Assange, that was handled by the RfC. From my reading, the article adheres to RfC by accurately reflecting the reliable sources and explaining any "sides" that exist with due weight. EvergreenFir(talk)20:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@EvergreenFir: I think that part of the issue that's come up again and again at this article and article talk, over the long term, is the conflation of "DUE WEIGHT" with "NO WEIGHT." I hope to make a longer post about this in a number of days (today if I can). In brief however, the relative certainty with which this article treats allegations that rely almost wholly upon the say-so of American intelligence agencies depends on excluding commentary from reliable sources that is skeptical of those allegations. Multiple RfCs have shown that while a majority of editors tend to vote to exclude skepticism, a great many editors have stated that the article should include more skepticism. That's not surprising: the RfC votes have tended to replicate the views of the American public generally, and the way in which media around this world (even if we ignore Russian media) have reported on skepticism. Unfortunately, almost none of this has made its way into the article. And that is theoretically possible on Misplaced Pages, even if a slim majority wants to exclude skepticism, and the editing (and general political) environment is polarized. It really doesn't need to be this way and it shouldn't. -Darouet (talk) 13:16, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
@Darouet: The issue of due weight/no weight is certainly important and I understand what you mean with regard to this article. The other problem, from what I gather here, is that the skepticism is from individuals more than news organizations (correct me if I am mistaken), and then the issue of notable opinions comes into play. I don't have an answer for that, and it might be that NPOVN can help resolve that. But as for the {{POV}}, it seems to me that they should stay off the article for now. EvergreenFir(talk)14:30, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree. Also, there is no justification for NPOV tags when there are active talk page discussions and recently closed discussions about the article and title NPOV.- MrX20:25, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Based on the above, there are many editors who think this article reflects a specific POV. @EvergreenFir: It's highly insulting to all of us editors who have argued that this article is non-neutral to pretend we don't exist. Just look at the talk page above. I see a slight majority supporting the article as-is, but a significant minority believing that it's highly skewed. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@Thucydides411: NOTAVOTE aside, I see at least 8 editors (myself included) that say there's no POV issue. You and JFG say there is one. Humanengr had questions about sources. That's not a slight majority. This all after the RfC was concluded. If you have issues with it, perhaps WP:NPOVN would be the best place. EvergreenFir(talk)21:21, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
I guess we need an RfC to decide whether the article neutrality is disputed. Or not. Tagging is useful but how do we work together towards neutrality when one group of "guardians" keeps insisting that there is no neutrality problem because only the "mainstream view" counts (and then cherry-picks what is mainstream enough)? — JFG21:24, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@EvergreenFir: Just to add to this, your edit summary here is misleading. The POV section of this talk page does not indicate a "general consensus" that the POV tags are unwarranted. You can't have honestly read through the back-and-forth between editors on both sides of the issue and come to the conclusion that there's "general consensus." Again, you're pretending that editors like myself, JFG, Humanengr and Darouet (not to mention all the editors who have previously argued that the article is non-neutral, but have given up editing here) simply do not exist, and simply skipping over our objections. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:26, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@Thucydides411: I've not been a part of this discussion and have no involvement here. But your "my way is the only correct way" attitude is apparent from the discuss above and your comments to me. They are not remotely helpful in resolving this, or any issue. This is not a battleground or a place to wright great wrongs, as you know. Tone down the polemics please. EvergreenFir(talk)21:34, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@EvergreenFir: I'm actually simply asking you to acknowledge the existence of a dispute. From my perspective (and probably that of many editors who think this article has serious NPOV problems), consistent reversion of our edits to the content of the article, dismissal of our POV concerns, and then dismissal of the idea that there even is a POV dispute looks a lot like "my way is the only correct way."
When you read through a discussion in which several editors express the opinion that the article has POV problems, and then write that there is "general consensus" that there are no POV problems, that looks a lot like "my way or the highway." I'd just like you (and other editors involved here) to recognize that there is a dispute here, and not to act as if the dispute does not exist. There's been next to no "give-and-take" here. When one side takes a maximalist view (e.g., systematically removing reference to any intelligence analyst or cybersecurity expert who has expressed doubt about the US government's case), it's very difficult for that give-and-take to exist. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:48, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
I think we're at the point where Arbcom expected one of our Admins to step in and issue another block to the recidivist disruptive editor. The first one didn't seem to do the trick, and nobody has any appetite for a long AE discussion. SPECIFICOtalk21:39, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
While the discussion above has evolved into a source battle over depicting Russian interference as fact or allegation, I'd like to submit the updated lead section as amended by myself and several editors before yesterday's revert by MrX. This version does not call the intervention alleged, although several editors have failed to acknowledge this simple fact. Besides the "alleged" controversy, some editors have expressed concrete concerns about awkwardness of the first two lead sentences and general "poor writing style". I say the first two sentences can be improved, and the writing style was even poorer before. Now, here's my proposal, with an amended first paragraph to address the discernable concerns. Please comment in the survey and discussion below.
Several cybersecurity firms stated that the cyberattacks were committed by hacker groups Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear associated with Russian intelligence. In October 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama directly warned Putin to stop interfering or face "serious consequences". Russian officials have repeatedly denied involvement in any DNC hacks or leaks.
In December 2016, Obama ordered a report on hacking efforts aimed at U.S. elections since 2008, while U.S. Senators called for a bipartisan investigation. President-elect Donald Trump initially rejected the intelligence reports, dismissing claims of foreign interference and saying that Democrats were reacting to their election loss. Investigations on Russian influence, including potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, were started by the FBI, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.
Starting in late 2015, European spy agencies intercepted communications between suspected Russian agents and Trump campaign associates. Six federal agencies have been investigating possible links and financial ties with the Kremlin, notably targeting Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Roger Stone. Clapper said that as of January 2017 the agencies he supervised had found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia.
On December 29, 2016, the U.S. expelled 35 Russian diplomats, denied access to two Russia-owned compounds, and broadened existing sanctions on Russian entities and individuals. Russia did not retaliate.
List of citations has not changed; they will appear correctly in the article, as most of them are culled from the article body.
Cite error: The named reference rg-20161230 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Survey
Please indicate your support or opposition to this version of the lead section, with a short rationale.
Support paragraphs 1 and 3 only - "US" should be changed to the more conventional "U.S". Important material about investigations of Stone, Kushner, Manafort and Page have been omitted from the second paragraph."Provided" should be "leaked". "Cut it out" should be change to "warned". The sentence: "Clapper said that as of January 2017 the agencies he supervised had found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia." is not lead worthy.- MrX11:44, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
I switched to "U.S." per MOS:US, except in the citation of the report, which spells it "US". Investigations of Stone, Kushner, Manafort and Page are mentioned twice in paragraph 4, just not named individually: Investigations on Russian influence, including potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, were started by the FBI, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. Six federal agencies have also been investigating possible links and financial ties between the Kremlin and Trump's associates. The Clapper statement is the only "status report" about those collusion investigations so far, hence relevant to the lead. "Provided" vs "leaked" was to avoid saying "leaked to Wikileaks" which looks awkward; what's wrong with "provided"? "Cut it out" is a direct citation of Obama's language, which gives some personal tone to the statement; we could instead paraphrase, e.g. "warned Putin to stop", but that's a bit dull. — JFG15:22, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
I believe the individuals being investigated should be named, but the rest of the sentence is fine.
"... and provided their contents to WikiLeaks." is a little vague. Perhaps we could say: "... and gave the stolen emails to WikiLeaks."
"Cut it out" is not a quotation of what was said on the call; it's a quotation of Obama's reflections of what what said. Do you really believe that he spoke to Putin in idiomatic slang? How about this as a more faithful account: "In October 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama directly warned Putin to stop such cyberattacks or face serious consequences."? Mentioning the red phone is fairly trivial.
Thanks; I have incorporated all your suggestions except Kushner who is not named in the cited sources, and the word "stolen" which is redundant with "hacked"; replaced "provided" with "forwarded"; used "stop interfering" per source, to avoid repeating "cyberattacks". Hope this addresses your objections so you can move to a full Support !vote. — JFG06:20, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: I'd like to know if you now approve the full text with the latest amendments. Your voice is particularly significant as you were first to revert the proposed lead changes. — JFG08:41, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: Everything except the first sentence looks acceptable to me. Articles such as this should be written from a historical perspective. The use of present tense in the first sentence is jarring and sounds like breaking news. I also strongly prefer "officially concluded" or "concluded" over "highly confident".- MrX11:41, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Done OK, amended again with "has concluded with high confidence" directly in the first sentence, so there's no need to repeat it in the second one. Good? — JFG14:14, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support para 1 with the following edit — with due credit to Geogene. Afaics no one else has suggested using the phrase in the Oct 2016 joint statement that is the PS cited by the RS cited in the lead sentence: "The United States Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”? The progression from "is confident that" in the 1st sentence citing the Oct 2016 statement to "expressed 'high confidence' that” in the 2nd sentence citing the Jan 2017 report uses simple phrasings, allows all sides to move on peaceably, and can be further appended in a timely manner with -results- of the next official work product. Humanengr (talk) 06:40, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Support other paras as long as para 1 comports with either my suggestion above or your further mod below in Discussion. 21:13, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Humanengr: Do you agree with the latest amendment to the lead sentence saying "has concluded with high confidence", per discussion with MrX above? If we get consensus between the two of you on this part too, that would be immense progress… — JFG14:18, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes -- and with that in the lead sentence, I'm ok with the non-qualified (and ergo more certain) "stated … that x" in the 2nd sentence and "stated that y" in 2nd para 1st sentence. Humanengr (talk) 15:11, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
The current lede is much better than this version - The version above removes the "Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between suspected Russian agents and the Trump campaign as early as 2015" fact from the first paragraph. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 16:05, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
@Gouncbeatduke: That's only because this phrase was added to the lead after the RfC was opened; we could certainly incorporate it in the proposed new lead, perhaps in a more logical spot, I'll think about it. What do you think of the rest of the text? — JFG11:35, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
We should use the same wording as discussed and agreed upon a few days ago: "Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between suspected Russian agents and the Trump campaign as early as 2015". Pinging SusanLesch who led that discussion.- MrX12:10, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I had to edit it slightly to fit the placement in the paragraph discussing inquiries on links between Russian agents and Trump campaign associates. Just now tweaked the wording to be closer to Susan's version: Starting in late 2015, European spy agencies intercepted communications between suspected Russian agents and Trump campaign associates. Fine? — JFG12:58, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Please place suggested amendments or longer discussions here.
The lede as of this version was much better. While a few editors have said they don't like the version I've linked, I don't think they've articulated any clear reason why, beyond disagreement with the word "alleged." The first sentence states the subject of the article:
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government played in the 2016 US presidential election.
The second sentence gives a very short summary of the events that led to the scandal:
Following the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta by WikiLeaks, the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks.
The third sentence paraphrases what US intelligence has claimed about Russian interference:
An assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored presidential candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign to harm Clinton's electoral chances and "undermine public faith in the US democratic process".
Well, that "alleged" is a big deal. Other than that it's ok as far as the first three sentences go. The major problem with your version is that it then proceeds to conceal/remove a bunch of pertinent info that follows those three sentences.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:54, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I've presented several major news sources (BBC, Financial Times, Associated Press, Reuters, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Le Monde) that use "alleged" or equivalent language. If you don't have any answer to that, then you should withdraw your objection to that language. Right now, you're simply blockading without any reasonable rationale. You've cited WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT at me several times now, and it's highly relevant here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:43, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
The objection before was that reliable sources treat "Russian interference" as a fact. That's not true, as the sources I've cited show. So now that you've been presented with evidence, has your opinion changed? If not, why not? You can't just ignore the evidence and continue citing policies. Reliable sources say "alleged." That's what the article should say, unless you have a substantive objection. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:32, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Their policy of not saying things they don't know to be true. "Some sources" includes the BBC, the Financial Times, Reuters, Associated Press, the largest papers in Germany and France, and NBC News. If they're not willing to say that "Russian interference" is a fact, then Misplaced Pages shouldn't either. We're having this discussion because MrX reverted changes to the lede that several editors had hashed out together in one of the few productive discussions I've ever seen on this talk page. If you're going to declare this a dead horse, then you should do the honors and restore the reformulated lede yourself. One can't revert and then refuse to discuss. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:13, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
You can stop pinging me Thucydides411. I'm actively watching this page. You conveniently neglect to mention that several of these same news agencies do treat the Russia interference as fact. . I'm going to join in the chorus of others asking you to let this go. This incessant REHASH has become disruptive and could result in you being topic banned, or otherwise sanctioned.- MrX12:12, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: I hate to jump into this discussion, but I'm afraid the sources you just cited are reinforcing Thucydides411's case: Le Monde 1 says "allegations of Russian interference" and "Russia was accused by US intelligence services or interfering in the presidential election", Le Monde 2 says "Hacking attributed to Russia" and "The report by intelligence agencies affirms that the Russian president influenced the American election campaign.", Reuters 1 says nothing (just quotes Senators about requesting sanctions over "attempts to influence" the election), Reuters 2 mentions "Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election" within a list of issues addressed by Tillerson (doesn't say it's a fact or an allegation, it just names the issue), NBC 1 says "allegedly meddling in the election", NBC 2 says "alleged ties between Trump's surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government", AP 1 talks about "the House probe into Russian interference" (doesn't call it a fact, just says there's a probe), AP 2 talks about "an investigation into Russian meddling" (same thing). So out of 8 sources, that's 4 explicitly qualifying the interference as "alleged", 1 saying nothing of substance, 1 just naming it as an issue among other things, and 2 talking about the existence of investigations. — JFG14:54, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I have to say that I agree with JFG's assessment of the sources. MrX, when you say that a source treats Russian interference as a fact, you should say in what way you can tell it treats Russian interference as fact. Reading through your links, I don't see the news agencies making any assertions that Russia interfered in US elections.
You and the chorus of people asking me to let this go should instead be asking yourselves why you're holding onto your position in the face of mounting evidence. You guys haven't been able to quote a major newspaper saying directly that Russia interfered in US elections, and there have now been dozens of articles posted on this talk page where major newspapers explicitly call "Russian interference" an allegation. So rather than threatening to try to topic ban me (for what - doing research on what reliable sources say and then posting it here?), why don't you actually consider the evidence here, and possibly change your mind? If you don't change your mind, you at least need to express some rationale that passes a basic plausibility test. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
And the dispute is not new either: here's FallingGravity pointing to plenty of RS explicitly calling the allegations "allegations" in January 2017. The reply from the "it's an undisputed fact, DEADHORSE" chorus? Crickets… — JFG15:40, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
JFG, your analysis of my sources is flawed across the board. For example in Le Monde 1, the word "allégations" is from a quote from an unnamed third party, not the voice of the newspaper. "Hacking attributed to Russia" means "the hacking that Russia did", not "the hacking that Russia is alleged to have done". My reading of the body of sources makes it very clear that sources overwhelmingly treat the Russia interference as fact.- MrX16:05, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Look, I don't care any longer whether Russian interference is called "alleged" in Misplaced Pages's voice, but I can't just remain silent when you guys keep straight denying that a very large fraction of RS articles either express no opinion on the U.S. intelligence officials' accusations against Russia or call them explicitly "allegations". (I knew I shouldn't have jumped into the source battle, but now I'm there…) Back to Le Monde, the first article quotes a Washington official using the word "allegations", that's even stronger than the journalist's neutral voice; the second article merely says that the attribution of hacks to Russia "has become the official position of the American administration". And the title word "imputé" does convey an attribution, effectively saying "somebody (US intelligence) is accusing somebody else (Russia) of something". Best translation would be "Hacking blamed on Russia". Don't take my word for it, just check the numerous examples in a French analytical dictionary. — JFG16:37, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
JFG, examining NBC2 as per your example: Meddling is used twice, once with, once without alleged; interference/interfere is used four times (Russia’s election interference, Russian interference in the election, Putin … became personally involved in the campaign to interfere, Moscow’s interference). So by your reckoning this source is "explicitly qualifying the interference as "alleged""? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:48, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Space4Time3Continuum2x: Given the excerpts you cite, you must be talking about NBC1. So let's look at the context around the words (emphasis mine): "Sen. Ben Cardin called for an independent commission into election meddling", "sanctions imposed by the Obama administration against Russia for allegedly meddling in the election", "a 9/11-style commission to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election", "U.S. intelligence officials believe Putin became personally involved in the campaign to interfere in the election", "Trump frequently denied the claims about Moscow's interference", so yes by my reckoning this source is not taking an affirmative position about the nature, scope or impact of the interference, it correctly attributes the claims of interference to US intelligence services, it mentions calls for investigations and it does call the meddling alleged in the journalist's voice. — JFG17:05, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
OK good, cause even the non-RS say that Russian Interference is a fact With JFG no longer contesting the fact, next step would be to deep six (American Nixonism) the latest lede RfC. SPECIFICOtalk17:36, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
I found 5 pages hits for the term "alleged" in a Google news search for the last hour. It seems to be a fairly common and evenhanded term used when police or others have made accusations against living people that have not been proved in a court or other tribunal. Here's ABC an article called, "Charleston Shooting: A Closer Look at Alleged Gunman Dylann Roof". That did not cast doubt on whether Dylann Roof was the gunman. That's just how serious sources report things. TFD (talk) 13:08, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
If the title is so difficult to understand that it needs to be explained in the lead, then maybe we should change it, to something like "Alleged Russian …"? No, wait, been there, not done that. Replacing hacking & providing to WL with "release of emails", "leaks" - did the DNC and Podesta turn them over to WL? Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 16:01, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, SPECIFICO, but I don't know what C16 means. I don't have a copy of the DNC talking points glossary. FYI, people who commit crimes against the United States or its citizens are subject to prosecution in the U.S. Osama bin Laden for example was on the FBI ten most wanted list despite having never entered the U.S. and attempts were made to by the U.S. government to apprehend him. Closer to the topic, Julian Assange, who released the DNC and Podesta emails, is currently under criminal investigation in the U.S. for possible violation of the Espionage Act. Guccifer, a computer hacker living in Romania, has been indicted on multiple counts in the U.S. and is facing extradition. TFD (talk) 17:21, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
You mean the alleged Osama! Assange takes credit for "wikileaks" Guccifer is as real as "SPECIFICO", not a person. Next...SPECIFICOtalk17:53, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Do you think it is possible to reply to my statements without going off on a tangent? Guccifer is a name for Marcel Lazăr Lehel, "an individual accused of a crime subject to pending US prosecution." Whether or not Assange takes credit for wikileaks, he does not take credit for conspiring with the Russian government to subvert democracy in the United States.Any person regardless of nationality or current whereabouts may be prosecuted by U.S. authorities if they were involved in hacking into the DNC and Podesta emails. So just concede you were mistaken about your strawman argument accusation and move on. TFD (talk) 18:10, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
OK we'll get serious cause folks don't know you're just flirting with me. The tangent is bringing up examples of OTHERSTUFF instead of sticking to whether mainstream RS overwhelmingly accept the fact that Russia took various actions to interfere with the US elections. So let's reboot and you can demonstrate that the mainstream view is not that Russia tried to interfere. SPECIFICOtalk18:16, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
The problem is that they consistently qualify the claims with terms such as "alleged." And they will continue to do that until evidence is presented and experts provide their opinions. That does not mean they question the intelligence any more than they questioned WMDs in Iraq or that accused criminals are guilty. And that's how this article should be written according to policy. TFD (talk) 20:32, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Do you have any evidence that the intelligence community actually claimed that Iraq had WMDs as claimed by the executive branch? Objective3000 (talk) 21:52, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
We're going round and round here. There were a couple of threads on this earlier (such as the hatted discussion about Iraq in this RfC). The TL;DR is that both the Bush administration and the intelligence agencies were complicit in aggressively overselling intelligence about supposed Iraqi WMD. In the years afterwards, we in the public found out that the internal, classified conclusions of the intelligence agencies were much weaker than had been publicly stated. We had been told they were certain about things that they weren't actually certain about. That's a cautionary note for everyone to take to heart. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:06, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Editors' opinions are required when assessing the reliablity of sources. U.S. intelligence has consistently provided conveniently misleading information and therefore is not a reliable source. Whether or not specific claims are accurate is something we determine based on what reliable sources, such as mainstream news media and academic research, say. TFD (talk) 06:02, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, now we have your opinion, and then we have U.S. intelligence declarations published in RS. Hmmmm...which should we choose, your opinion and OR about their reliability, or the RS? Just in case you haven't noticed, there is an ongoing investigation, and as more has leaked out, we have discovered that any seeming dissembling by them was because they had to protect the investigation, and what has been revealed is that the seriousness of the interference is far more than anyone of us realized, and that the likelihood of collusion seems stronger as well. The latest revelations about Carter Page, and his denials (which draw quite the revealing picture) are very interesting. His denials are like dots scattered on the floor, with an area with no dots, and that area is a picture, exactly the one described on page 30 of the dossier. Without being accused, he "doesn't" mention it several times in several different interviews. How odd. It's as if he knows something. Stay tuned.
My point is that your OR seems more based on personal POV than upon the revelations coming from RS, so I suggest we just go with them, and time will tell. Otherwise, this is the talk page, and this is an interesting discussion, but we can't put yours or my speculations in the article....fortunately. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:49, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
That's your personal OR. However, having an opinion quoted in a reliable source does not make that opinion a fact, unless the reliable source says it is. And reliable sources policy does not mention U.S. Intelligence agencies as reliable sources. Anyway you know that, I know that you know that etc. TFD (talk) 19:43, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@The Four Deuces: You really hit on the heart of the problem. The fact that a reliable source quotes person A does not mean we should treat that person A's statement as true. Putin has been quoted by reliable sources as saying that Russia did not interfere in US elections. That doesn't make Putin's statement true. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
The proposed text cites the Nakashima article about the January 2017 report; we could cite an extra source mentioning the October 2016 report; their conclusions are essentially the same. As you recently pointed out, mentioning an exact date was superfluous in the lead sentence itself. — JFG07:23, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@The Four Deuces: We are not relying on "US Intelligence" - we are simply reflecting what RS say. Mainstream RS could report on a confident idiot in a cage and we would need to cite that. It has nothing to do with our opinion of the opinion, let alone our opinion as to the facts. SPECIFICOtalk12:16, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: Re "their conclusions are essentially the same": Yes, contra the 1st sentence, neither report said "concluded that".
The Oct report said "x was confident that y". The Jan report said "x had high confidence that y" -- as noted in the 2nd sentence after the title and 1st sentence have set the tone for the entire article; too late. (Good to link 'high confidence' though few will follow that; the damage has been done.)
The certainty of the title and 1st sentence are reinforced elsewhere in the lead paras.
Any RS's that reports that the USIC "concluded that" are lying about the degree of certainty and should be disqualified as RS; their error-checking is meaningless. Humanengr (talk) 12:35, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
That's ridiculous, but feel free to inquire at WP:RSN if you think you can get other editors to concur with that reasoning.- MrX12:53, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
You do understand that different sources may use different words to convey the same information, right? I don't understand why anyone has difficulty understanding why journalists would interpret "The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises..." to mean "USIC concluded that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises...". See alsoWIKT: conclusion: "A decision reached after careful thought."- MrX13:17, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
In the context used, those two statements are semantically equivalent. I thought that was obvious from my previous response.- MrX13:59, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I have precious little time to help improve this article, and this discussion is not helping to fulfill that goal. Cheers.- MrX14:25, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Given that the DNI does not see those statements as semantically equivalent, is there any improvement you could make that is more substantive than to use their language in the lead sentence? Why propagate a misrepresentation? Humanengr (talk) 14:40, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@MrX: And yes, I can understand some "journalists would interpret …". They inhabit a common culture with common biases that distort. The DNI report is clear and succinctly indicates degree of certainty., There is no excuse except our own biases not to use DNI language in the very first sentence. Humanengr (talk) 15:07, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@Humanengr: Report said "determined" which was in the article briefly but reverted by one of the POV fringe edits. It's really important everyone review the history of the article and the talk discussions, because the more we reopen rehash and relitigate settled discussions, the less participation we're going to have here and the worse the article will be served. SPECIFICOtalk12:57, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@Humanengr: I kept "concluded" because any other word is going to be fiercely contested, and because there's an open RfC about using this exact word vs "accused". I once suggested "affirmed", which sounds more neutral and factual to me, hoping we could get consensus on that… Opinions? — JFG15:00, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: I appreciate your efforts. 'Affirmed' seems both nebulous (affirmed what?) and too certain (the 'that x' part). Here’s a thought that afaics no one else has expressed: How about using the phrase in the Oct 2016 report that is in the PS cited by the RS cited in the lead sentence: "The United States Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”? As much as I don’t think it helps to continue to refer to the older report now that the newer one is available, it does allow for a short accurate summary statement. Humanengr (talk) 19:09, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: On the chance that Geogene agrees (see discussion above), given the time constraint, would it make sense to incorporate this into this RfC, start another or ?? Humanengr (talk) 21:00, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
@Humanengr: I would support this alternate wording; please add it to the survey section, similarly to MrX's amendments "Support, conditional on suggestion XYZ", so that other editors can follow the draft evolution without going through walls of text. — JFG05:53, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
As the second sentence already says "high confidence", we would have to rephrase it slightly. I would suggest:
OK as I understand the situation the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said they were highly confident the Russians had been behind the hacks. What about the rest of the US intelligence community? The FBI see to have said the Russians did do it. GRIZZLY STEPPE accuses the Russians. So the lead must reflect the fact that much of the US intelligence community has said the Russians did it.
"Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government played in the 2016 US presidential election. Following the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta by WikiLeaks, much of the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks. However an assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored presidential candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton..."
@Slatersteven: It seems we are converging. My focus is almost (but not completely) on the 1st sentence. Re your proposed 1st sentence, 'alleged' works for me but not for many here as we have seen. Re your cmt at Teahouse re 'high confidence': JPG's mod (immediately above at 06:30, 14 April 2017 (UTC)) shifts that from 2nd sentence to 1st. IMO, that accomplishes much. I can explain further and comment on the rest, but wanted to get your reaction to that. Humanengr (talk) 20:56, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
You're "converging" with one editor? That's not converging. That's diverging. Your proposed words are much worse than what's currently there, and your negotiations among the scant minority of editors who will even bother responding to you are fruitless. SPECIFICOtalk21:05, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Slatersteven: I think we mostly agree on the first paragraph. The only change I'd make to your proposal would be to remove the word "However," because the statement that follows "However" doesn't really contradict the preceding sentence. This proposal is very close to what a number of editors worked out together earlier. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:48, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
"A number of editors worked out" What number do you claim? I count about 4 out of 30-40 editors who've collaborated to produce the current consensus text. SPECIFICOtalk22:51, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
General comment -- I'm finding this RFC to be hard to follow. I'm not even sure what we are supposed to !vote on. Generally, I'd like to convey that the use of "alleged interference" is not some nefarious way of casting doubt on the findings of the U.S. intelligence agencies. Essentially, Misplaced Pages is reporting on a current event (investigation of said interference) and it's good journalistic practice to qualify the incident in question as "probable" / "likely" / "evidence of", etc, and not as a statement of fact. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:16, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Except that we are not journalists and this and the alleged RfC can be ignored. Various parts of the article actually need work right now. SPECIFICOtalk17:40, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: Should I read "alleged RfC" as a manifestation of your sense of humour or as a personal attack? I find it really insulting that you would disparage my efforts to build consensus, especially as I've been following your own advice! — JFG17:53, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Another scarecrow. I said to take it to a Sandbox page and work out something that has a snowbowel's chance of being accepted. I suggest you withdraw it and do that now before more time is wasted on this. SPECIFICOtalk02:21, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
I am going to reply here, rather then above as this discussion is far too long and rambling.
It is clear that whilst one arm of the US intelligence services has used ore diplomatic language to make the claim much of the rest (and it seems to be the majority) have not caveated their comments and have asserted that Russia did it. Our lead must reflect that, any thing else is weasel wording.Slatersteven (talk) 09:02, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Just popping in here. Slatersteven, I assume we're discussing this sentence: "Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government played ...." Is that correct?
So the first part is without "alleged" (I totally agree), and the second part is with it. What is the distinction you're making? Is it that there is still some uncertainty about the degree to which the actual Russian government was involved, as opposed to other players? I'm just throwing this out there to probe your thinking. -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:17, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
(Perhaps BullRangifer mistook your "OK as I understand …" para as a proposed lead para?)
Re 'alleged': As others here have objected to that word, can you offer an alternative phrasing to the lead sentence that captures your intent? Humanengr (talk) 04:34, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Slatersteven, I was referring to the first and second halves of your sentence I copied in my comment. Here it is again: (1) "Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to (2) the alleged role that the Russian government played ...."
Yes those are the words I used, I am not sure what there is to not understand. It is an allegation, so it has been alleged. As to alternative wording. However I am wondering what we are arguing about, as it stand the opening paragraph of the lead seems to sum it up. |Maybe wee need to make it clear that not all the US intel agencies were quite so equivocal, but I do not see what about the lead paragraph is a problem.
"A number of US intelligence agencies officially concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections. In January 2017, whilst another U.S. intelligence community assessment expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chances. Intelligence allies of the U.S. in Europe found communications between suspected Russian agents and the Trump campaign as early as 2015"
It is odd that it says that "everyone" and then goes on to say "except these people". This is the germ of the debate, the fact we do over egg the cake over the degree to which US intelligence had concluded the Russians did it.Slatersteven (talk) 09:02, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Slatersteven, we aren't arguing about anything. I just wanted to make sure I understood you. My questions were just as much to figure out your meaning as to learn from you. I'll repeat them here.
What is the distinction you're making? Is it that there is still some uncertainty about the degree to which the actual Russian government was involved, as opposed to other players? Why use alleged? I thought there was a lot of certainty about the involvement of the Russian government, enough that we wouldn't need to use the word "alleged" there. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm just trying to figure this out. I've read most RS, but there are other RS and other ways of looking at this. -- BullRangifer (talk) 20:44, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
A lot as not absolute. And whilst there may be "a lot of certainty" this is not 100% (even in the US intelligence community). it is not "a lot of certainty" that is needed but "beyond reasonable doubt", and that seems to me to not be the case yet.Slatersteven (talk) 08:29, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Implementing the reformulated first paragraph
I think it's time to reinstate the reformulated first paragraph of the article. Here it is:
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections refers to the alleged role that the Russian government played in the 2016 US presidential election. Following the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta by WikiLeaks, the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks. An assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) expressed "high confidence" that Russia favored presidential candidate Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign to harm Clinton's electoral chances and "undermine public faith in the US democratic process."
I'm not saying this first paragraph is perfect, but it is much stronger than the current first paragraph, and I think it has greater support from active editors on this talk page than the current lede. The advantages of this first paragraph, in my view, are:
The first sentence states generally what the article is about.
It gives a brief description of the major background elements of the affair (the release of emails by Wikileaks, the claims made by US intelligence).
It uses the appropriate word, "alleged," to refer to the allegations of Russian interference. Many reliable sources use exactly this word regularly, and almost all treat "Russian interference" as an allegation.
A number of editors worked together to formulate this intro paragraph. It was then reverted by MrX (diff). In the ensuing discussion, several more editors have expressed support for the reformulated first paragraph, and I think that it has majority support here. The main bone of contention with this text has been the word "alleged," but I think the above source discussion has shown that "alleged" is completely in line with reporting from numerous reliable sources (among them the BBC, Financial Times, Reuters, Associated Press, NBC News, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Le Monde, although this list is by no means exhaustive).
Since the source discussion has established that "alleged" is a completely mainstream designation for Russia's alleged interference, I think this objection is now moot. I'd therefore propose to reinstate the reformulated intro paragraph. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:28, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
No, just no. Those who understand these things best have "concluded" that Russia interfered in the election, and numerous RS have so stated. This is a very controversial proposal. One cannot make such a decision based on the presence or absence of one word. It started as allegations, which quickly were confirmed. Investigations since then have been on the basis that the allegations were correct, and discoveries since then have repeatedly confirmed that Russia was behind it, and that Putin directed it.
What's left is to confirm the allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to steal the election. So far what's been discovered tends strongly to confirm that allegation. So far we're calling that part an allegation. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:41, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Regarding the lead section, you should both comment in the RfC. Somehow all discussions have turned into a kind of source battle on the word "alleged" but that's not what the amended text says, so I would appreciate that opinionated editors give a honest look and state their position.
Now, BullRangifer, I wish you could convince me about your statements:
"It started as allegations, which quickly were confirmed" – what confirmation did we get besides the allegations, started by CrowdStrike and the DNC in June 2016 and repeated ad nauseam by US intelligence services and politicians since then, that Russian intelligence services were the perpetrators of DNC hacks and acted as sources to WikiLeaks, while being directed by Putin himself? On what basis, and by whom, were these inferences made? And with which evidence?
"Those who understand these things best" – you mean the intelligence services of a nation alleging misdeeds by intelligence services of another nation? or a political party who happened to lose an unlosable election alleging misdeeds by a rival political party who happened to win it? or established members of a political party alleging misdeeds by a newcomer into their party who happened to win the support of their voters, to their dismay? or vested interests who fear what an "unfit" president may bestow upon them?
"discoveries since then have repeatedly confirmed that Russia was behind it" – Which discoveries have confirmed anything? I read an awful lot about this issue, and see only innuendo. If you have seen some tangible confirmations which are not mere allegations, I'd love to see them.
"No, just no" is not a very productive attitude to take. If I understand your above post, you're saying that since US intelligence agencies ("Those who understand these things best") have said Russia interfered in the US elections, we should take that as fact. That's not how Misplaced Pages works. We go on the basis of reliable sources, and the large majority of reliable sources are treating "Russian interference" as an allegation. I say "large majority," because I'm holding out the possibility that one or two newspapers might state unequivocally that Russia interfered. I haven't seen any such clear statements from reliable sources, and they're apparently sufficiently difficult to find that (to my knowledge) they haven't been posted in this talk page yet. We go with source like the BBC and Reuters, not with allegations made by intelligence agencies.
We should absolutely describe the allegations made by US intelligence agencies, and the reformulated first paragraph does that. Reliable sources have reported heavily on those allegations, so we will, of course, describe them in this article. That's very different from taking raw statements from US intelligence and pasting them into Misplaced Pages as statements of fact, which is something we're not going to do. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:00, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, you wrote "large majority". You must have missed my explanation of the flaws in your thinking. There are plenty of RS which don't use "alleged". Your search, which "includes" alleged just confirms your bias. Others have performed the same search "without" alleged and found plenty of RS. This just shows that the search, especially without a complete (that would be hundreds of references) analysis on a time line, really doesn't prove anything other than that we can find RS which use it and which don't use it. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:27, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: I responded to your points here. The fact that a newspaper does not use the word "alleged" in a particular article does not mean that the newspaper does not treat "Russian interference" as an allegation. There are synonyms for "alleged," and there are plenty of ways of describing an allegation without endorsing it as true. Anyways, what I said above is that the large majority of reliable sources treat "Russian interference" as an allegation, and based on our discussion of sources above, that's true. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:50, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
I haven’t seen anyone here taking raw statements from US intelligence and pasting them into Misplaced Pages as statements of fact. Exaggerating what other editors have done does not convince. I’ll say it again, if you are attempting to convince other editors, you are using the wrong tact. This talk page is way too long, filled as it is, with the same repetition . Objective3000 (talk) 01:12, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@Objective3000: BullRangifer clearly said, in reply to my proposal, that we should take the claims of US intelligence agencies as fact. That is specifically what I was responding to. I assume you disagree strongly with BullRangifer on this - if you don't, please correct me.
Thank you for the note about my tact, but I'm proposing something concrete here. What do you think of the proposed wording of the first paragraph? I think the source discussion above settled the issue of whether "alleged" is a mainstream way of describing "Russian interference" (again, please correct me if you disagree), so I think we can move on to reimplementing the reformulated first paragraph. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:26, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Maybe I should just ask my two questions directly:
Do you agree with BullRangifer's statement that we should treat statements made by US intelligence as facts?
Do you agree that reliable sources often use "alleged" when describing "Russian interference," and that they generally treat "Russian interference" as an allegation, without endorsing it as fact?
I really don't know what would convince you, but I think I've shown what needs to be shown: that reliable sources generally frame "Russian interference" as an allegation. I've also said why I think the reformulated first paragraph is better than what we have now. If you don't agree, it would be more helpful if you'd say what it is you don't like about the reformulated first paragraph. "You do not convince" isn't productive. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:56, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
You've made your point. The community can't allow a talk page to be bludgeoned against consensus. We all need to accept reality when our views are not shared by the consensus of editors on a given issue. SPECIFICOtalk03:03, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Thucydides411, you're setting up a straw man argument. I didn't say that we "should treat statements made by US intelligence as facts." I believe they are correct, just as you, as an advocate for the Russian denial that any of this ever happened and that Trump is pure as snow, think the U.S. intelligence community is wrong. (Okay, I guess Putin has a right to have someone defending his POV here, and God knows that Trump and Putin are not ignoring our proceedings or allowing this discussion to happen without actively seeking to influence the editing process. C'est la vie.)
What we should NOT do is make the intelligence community state it as an "allegation", when they have "concluded" it happened. Don't misquote them. They are certain, even if you aren't. The current lead sentence is: "The United States Intelligence Community officially concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections." Don't change that to "alleged". That's dishonest. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:25, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, have you read the proposals? Thucydides' text does not connect "alleged" with the intelligence agencies' statements: he says that this article discusses the alleged role of Russia in the US presidential election, and that "the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks", that's pretty unambiguous. Alternately, my proposed lead in the RfC totally removes "alleged" and states, in their exact words, that said agencies are "highly confident" that Russia interfered in the election. Isn't that satisfactory? — JFG03:33, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: The text I'm proposing is the one that you helped write. I don't think your comments here apply at all to the text that I proposed above. For example, the text states unambiguously that "the US Intelligence Community concluded that Russia was behind the leaks." I'd really appreciate if you gave it a second look. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:23, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm pretty tired right now (jetlag), and this is a bit confusing,so maybe I'm conflating things. Somewhere on this page is a discussion to rename the article to some kind of "alleged" whatever. I think that's wrong, but I suspect that both of you support that idea, even though multiple intelligence agencies (USA and foreign), plus multiple competing cybersecurity companies, all conclude that the Russians did interfere in the election. That's factual, and there are plenty of RS which say it. That's the view which should get the most weight, and the title should reflect it.
I have made this comparison before, because I see what's happening here as similar to what has happened with the subject of climate change/global warming. The scientific consensus among 97% of published real climate scientists says that anthropogenic global warming is a fact, but there are multiple non-climate scientists and many amateurs who say it's not true. So in people's minds they see the 97% as ONE (as here they count the 17 US intelligence agencies as one), and the long list of people in the List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming as a whole lot of people (because they are named and can be counted) against that ONE. They think the deniers have the weightier argument. Fortunately the Misplaced Pages community gave the climate scientists the weight they deserve. Unfortunately, here I see the opposite happening. The amateur deniers get to push their POV and get more weight than the real experts when it comes to naming the article. They want the title to enshrine the doubt. I see that as problematic. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:40, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
FWIW neither Thucydides411 nor I are suggesting to change the title. We do agree with Adlerschloß and others that the article is biased towards the "official" POV, especially the lead section, and there are two proposals being floated to make it more neutral: this section and the open RfC. — JFG05:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Also, this is being misframed as an either/or. As noted elsewhere, the fact that the intelligence agencies have concluded something does not mean that it ceases to be an allegation in the wider sense. The two things are not mutually exclusive, and the CIA etc do not act as the sole adjudicators of fact. The comparison with climate change is a little off-beam. The agencies are not a wide range of disinterested parties relying on the objective scientific method to look at hard data, but partisan players, from a narrow and specific sector, who are in the business of making often subjective assessments about actions and motive etc. With a history not only of getting things wrong but of deliberate misinformation. There is widespread scepticism IRL, at least among those not too heavily invested in blaming Russia for everything that went wrong for Clinton and right for Trump, about their claims on this point. The page should reflect that, not privilege the IC conclusions, let alone take them as read or as the last word N-HHtalk/edits08:19, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
But we're not relying on them alone. The strongest evidence comes from competing cybersecurity companies whose individual interests would be best served by not agreeing. Instead CrowdStrike, Fidelis, Mandiant, SecureWorks and ThreatConnect agree that Russia was behind the hacks. They are essentially looking at the DNA left under the fingernails of those attacked. It's strong evidence. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: Have you had a chance to look again at the paragraph I'm suggesting above? It's the same paragraph that you were involved in formulating, and that you previously expressed support for. I think it pretty clearly states the position of US intelligence, which seems to me to be your main concern. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:15, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
No, I haven't, and I've lost any desire to do much more here. It's fruitless and a waste of time. Nothing I say will make any difference. There are far too many threads rehashing the same issues. It's just too complicated. I'm not removing this from my watchlist, but I feel it's hopeless here. RS have documented what experts say, but when those experts are not given the weight they deserve, there isn't much point in continuing. Just retitle the article Rebuttal of the unfair charges that Vladimir Putin would ever have any desire to destabilize western democracies, and then sign it, since that's the opinion of a number of editors here. This was obviously the doing of some 15 year old kid, just to mess with us. It's not at all notable. Nothing happened. There's nothing to see here folks. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:56, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
I admit that editing here is frustrating, but I think you have the completely wrong idea about what I'm proposing here. It's a fairly limited change to the article, and one that you previously wrote you thought was an improvement. But yes, it is frustrating to edit here, and the environment is far from collegial! -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:31, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
This version is inferior to both the current version and the amended version proposed by JFC above. The first sentence (basically "Interference refers to interference") is just poor writing because it is redundant. See Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Avoid_these_common_mistakes ("If the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the opening sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it. Instead, simply describe the subject in normal English, avoiding redundancy."). Neutrality14:43, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I have high confidence that the sun will rise tomorrow and that the first sentence is unacceptable and would never fly in a formal RfC. Jytdog (talk) 15:42, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I didn't think Trump or his cronies were known for their honesty or judgment. We don't take a politician's opinions as fact. We're having a discussion above about reliable sources, like major newspapers. -Thucydides411 (talk) 05:04, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
Who are you calling names? Tillerson? He is neither a politician nor a Trump "crony". Mainstream RS worldwide have reported the Tillerson statement. SPECIFICOtalk14:07, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
The whole idea of sharing these sources which document Trump's and Tillerson's acceptance of the fact of Russian interference is to show that even those who are, after Putin himself, the least likely to admit it are doing so. Putin will of course deny it, and we give as much credence to such a denial as we give to a proven murderer who denies committing the crime. Their word means nothing when it serves their own interest. (Note this last sentence, it will appear again.)
The reason they have very strongly resisted admitting it, and we know that Trump has very forcefully denied it for a long time, is because they are both undeniably close allies with Russia (dare I say treason?...since America is NOT an ally with Russia, especially Putin), with Trump (not necessarily Tillerson...as much) allegedly in collusion with Putin to win the presidency, Trump tied at the hip with Putin and Russian mobsters through confirmed business dealings, money laundering, and massive loans which rescued him from bankruptcy when no American bank would help him, and Trump allegedly being blackmailed.
In spite of all this, the evidence is strong enough to force them to admit that it's true. That means something, and that should be mentioned. In this case, their word means a whole lot when such an admission goes against their own interest. They would not lie to hurt themselves. (Although Trump is an enigma in this regard because he often lies when he doesn't need to and has thus inflicted damage on himself by doing so. That's because he often lies, not by design, but by reflex.)
When it comes to the article, the veracity of the allegations is determined by reliable sources, not by the statements or "admissions" of politicians and intelligence officials. The latter aren't reliable sources (except, perhaps, for their own opinions). You or I can have our personal readings of why Trump or Tillerson might say one or another thing about the allegations (and I suspect our readings wouldn't be the same), but what matters is what the reliable sources report. We can mention Tillerson's views on the allegations if they're notable enough, but that's very different from using his statements to argue that the article should treat the allegations as fact. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:27, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
I think that one went over my head, or under my nose, or on my toes or something. Anyway we tend to see lots of straw mans because the dissent have no response to the reasoned policy-based arguments of the consensus here. Or do you just mean you think me a princess? SPECIFICOtalk13:33, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages is not a court of law and editors cannot weight evidence, but can only report conclusions made in reliable sources, per original research. Furthermore, in law, one cannot "admit" something some else did of which one had no knowledge. A lot of effort is being wasted in arguments over whether material that clearly violates policy should be added to this article. BullRangifer and other Clinton supporters should be aware that smearing political opponents is a two-edged sword. Many Republicans have done the same thing, for example with claims Obama was not born in the U.S., and adopting their logic only gives them credibility. TFD (talk) 13:50, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: I'm afraid your revert citing "misrepresentation of source" was misguided, because it's the previous text which misrepresented the cited source. Just read the articles please: they are bashing the JAR report so hard it must be deader than the proverbial horse. — JFG16:47, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
That's cool, but cherry-picking the "Trump-friendly conspiracy theorists" bit still looks very undue compared to the meat of the article. I was surprised by the wide discrepancy between the virulent tone of the cited articles lambasting the JAR report and the mild apologetic tone of the Misplaced Pages sentences quoting them. — JFG17:56, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
We've been over this soooo many times. The subject of the article is the Russian interference, not the declassified reports. What they chose to declassify, whether they could have chosen a more complete public version, and why they chose the content that's in the JAR.. Who knows? Some RS have speculated that a more complete version would have compromised the several ongoing investigations relating to possible crimes and associations. WP will be able to adjust in due course, but these public reports and the pundits who get mentioned in comments thereon are of relatively minor significance to the subject. SPECIFICOtalk19:29, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
How about you answer my original point instead of making guesses about what is not in the reports? Fact is the article cited a credible source (Kevin Poulsen) who was extremely critical of the JAR report, calling it "worse than useless", and you cherry-picked one bit of this article that says the bad quality of this report encourages "Trump-friendly conspiracy theorists". I correct this as a blatant misrepresentation of the source, and all you did is a knee-jerk revert, followed by deflection. — JFG21:48, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
I just undid your edit, cause I thought it removed so much of the text as to alter its meaning and misrepresent the cited source. So I didn't pick anything, just undid what appeared to me to be a worse version than the one you reverted. I do think it's important to remember that these reports are not the subject of the article. The Russian interference is the subject of the article. So it's like if we edit the article about Los Angeles, and somebody states that in their considered opinion, a book calling it the "City of Angles" is a worse than useless publication, we'd most likely conclude that bit was not central to the topic of the article. SPECIFICOtalk22:28, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Great, so you will surely agree with me that whoever "Trump-friendly conspiracy theorists" may be, they are also not the subject of this article. I maintain that my inclusion of Poulsen's quote "worse than useless" is a good summary of the source material. — JFG02:33, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Never would I dare command you! I am asking you whether you agree that "Trump-friendly conspiracy theorists" are not the subject of this article. — JFG03:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@Geogene: I'm questioning your revert which restores a version of the text that seriously misrepresents the source by cherry-picking a phrase. Have you read the source article in full? How much weight does it give to Trump conspiracies vs the report's flaws? Quotes: "U.S. officials shoot themselves in the foot", "At every level this report is a failure", "the report is a gumbo of earnest security advice mixed with random information", "Though the written report is confusing, it’s the raw data released along with it that truly exasperates security professionals.", "We had an extraordinary high amount of false positives on this dataset", "It turns out that some, perhaps most, of the watchlisted addresses have a decidedly weak connection to the Kremlin, if any.", "the DHS watchlist is useless to network administrators already fighting “alert fatigue”", "the government is now confusing everyone". Sorry, you can't honestly summarize this article by cherry-picking the expression "Trump-friendly conspiracy theorists": this is not what the article is mainly talking about, by a long shot. — JFG23:14, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
It's not cherry-picking to present the central thesis of the source. To quote it in full: "Such was the case last week when the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI released a technical exposé of Russia’s hacking that industry experts are slamming as worse than useless—so jumbled that it potentially harms cybersecurity, so aimless that it muddies the clear public evidence that Russia hacked the Democratic Party to affect the election, and so wrong it enables the Trump-friendly conspiracy theorists trying to explain away that evidence." If you want to add to it that also harms cybersecurity, that's OK. Not okay with leaving out the genuine concern that ineptitude of the report encourages pro-Trump conspiracy theories, which is prominent in the first paragraph. Geogene (talk) 23:23, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, that is not the "central thesis of the source". It's a couple words thrown in the middle of the article to convey an anti-Trump message. The writer is clearly exasperated that the intelligence report cannot make a strong case against Trump, and he spends 90% of his words lambasting the report's lack of professionalism and reliance on innuendo instead of displaying solid evidence. Nowhere in the article do I see any discussion of who are those "Trump-friendly conspiracy theorists" and what kind of theories they may be peddling. Nowhere! So if we're going to use this source, we cannot summarize it by quoting the only thing it doesn't talk about. — JFG00:43, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
No. The author is bothered that the report did not make a convincing case, when it clearly could have. This is why he spent so much time in the article explaining that virtually everyone knows Russia is to blame, and it was pathetic that that report didn't knock it out of the park. Did you read that article? The author talks about conspiracy theories (denialism) in no less than six paragraphs. That's a major gripe, not something he threw out in the opening and then, somehow, forgot about. Geogene (talk) 01:42, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
So you agree with me that the author's main point is to criticize the agencies' report. And I agree with you that the author wishes the report had shown more direct and convincing evidence of the Russian interference and Trump collusion. Proponents of this interference story will read this article as healthy criticism of the agencies' work encouraging them to do better, and people who already doubted the intelligence story will feel vindicated by the lack of proof in a document whose purpose was precisely to bring out damning evidence. Those are two equally valid interpretations, although they are just that, interpretations of what cybersecurity experts Poulsen, Lee and Graham wrote.
Now let's scan the article fully for phrases that could be construed as "conspiracy theories":
Vladimir Putin need do nothing but sit back and chuckle mirthlessly while U.S. officials shoot themselves in the foot. (conspiracy theory portraying Putin as a supervillain)
it enables the Trump-friendly conspiracy theorists trying to explain away that evidence (calling Trump supporters "conspiracy theorists" when they question the evidence of Russian interference and/or collusion)
They’re handing out bad information to the industry when good information exists. (conspiracy theory that intelligence agencies are either incompetent or complicit with Trump, because they are drowning the available good evidence in a sea of bad evidence, instead of bringing the good evidence to light)
It turns out that some, perhaps most, of the watchlisted addresses have a decidedly weak connection to the Kremlin, if any. (conspiracy theory that the evidence presented is indeed very poor or irrelevant, implying that either there is no compelling evidence or the agencies deliberately chose to obfuscate it)
Russian hackers use Tor, but so do plenty of other people. (fact that we can't tell who attacks a service via the Tor obfuscation network)
a Vermont utility company, Burlington Electric Department, followed DHS’s advice and added the addresses to its network monitoring setup. It got an alert within a day. The utility called the feds, and The Washington Post soon broke the distressing news that “Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont.” The story was wrong. (conspiracy theory that Russians hacked the U.S. power grid)
The Grizzly Steppe report also gives succor to those who argue that the identity of the DNC and John Podesta hackers is unknown, and perhaps unknowable. By kind-of-but-not-really publishing forensic data on the DNC and Podesta hacks, and mixing it with other material, the administration fed right into that story line and fattened it up. (conspiracy theory that U.S: intelligence agencies are unwittingly helping the case of people who don't believe their every word "on pure faith".)
the FBI didn’t even examine the DNC’s harddrives (conspiracy theory that the FBI did a sloppy job)
I don't see the word "denialism", "denial" or even "deny" anywhere, and the word "truther" was injected in the headline without being mentioned in the text (and you know the editor writes headlines, not the author). Again, summarizing this article as "enabling Trump conspiracists" is a severely biased reading of what the authors say, because it represents a small part of their argument. Anyway, "conspiracy theory" is a poisoned word, which people throw at each other when they simply disagree about a particular narrative, here the IC narrative vs the Russian narrative. Both sides are convinced that people who believe the "other" narrative are conspiracy theorists or worse, nutcases or evil manipulators.
Perhaps we could rephrase our prose to avoid this loaded word while accurately conveying what the source is saying? Here's a suggestion:
Former hacker Kevin Poulsen, quoting security researchers Robert M. Lee and Robert Graham, stated that the December 2016 intelligence report was "useless" because it confused the public with irrelevant warnings while obfuscating the actual evidence of Russian hackers' intervention as compiled by cybersecurity firms, thus unwittingly supporting the case of people who deny the intervention.
Change title to "Allegations of Russian interference..."
Title as it stands is highly POV and does not reflect that most reliable sources refer to the narrative of Russian interference as alleged. US intelligence agencies are not themselves a reliable source, obviously. Why has this not been changed after so much dispute? It seems in any event we should lean toward the more careful title, but in this case the actual documentary evidence from sources is overwhelming. Including "Alleged" or "Allegations of" in the title should seem to be rather unobjectionable. This should happen as soon as possible. Adlerschloß (talk) 09:26, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
I just spent some time reading through Talk, oh my this has been going on for a while. We need another RfC on the article's title as soon as possible. The original title is biased, we are supposed to be writing an encyclopedia here, not carrying water for a particular political faction. Adlerschloß (talk) 10:13, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
What we do not need is to have an RFC on this on a monthly basis. The same arguments will be had, and the same votes made and the same result will occur.Slatersteven (talk) 14:45, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Adler, why would you expect the outcome to be any different this month? Have you considered that? Maybe come back in a year when more is known about the Russian interference. SPECIFICOtalk14:57, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
If there is presently no proof of interference, shouldn't the article title reflect that? Wouldn't it be better to have the most careful and accurate title possible? If or when interference allegations are proved, wouldn't that be the point at which the current title would be NPOV? I am not sure how anyone familiar with this case and the demonstrable lack of proof of interference (which has been repeatedly acknowledged even by supporters of the interference narrative) could argue against including "allegations" in the title. I for one would like to argue the case at RfC, as I had not been aware an article title so egregious was on our encyclopedia. Adlerschloß (talk) 20:32, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
"IF". That's where you go wrong. Several competing cybersecurity companies found good evidence. Read the article! The rest of your reasoning, having started on a false basis, can be ignored. There is evidence. Period. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:31, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Are these companies reliable sources per our standards? Some of them, such as Crowdstrike, are not even reliable sources in contexts of computer security discourse.
"No smoking gun ... but evidence suggests"
"Were the hackers who broke into the DNC's email really Russian?"
But among private-sector computer security companies, not everybody thinks the case is proven.
“I have no problem blaming Russia for what they do, which is a lot,” said Jeffrey Carr of the international cybersecurity company Taia Global Inc. “I just don’t want to blame them for things we don’t know that they did. It may turn out that they’re guilty, but we are very short on evidence here.”
As Carr notes, the FBI never examined the servers that were hacked at the Democratic National Committee. Instead, the DNC used the private computer security company CrowdStrike to detect and repair the penetrations.
“All the forensic work on those servers was done by CrowdStrike, and everyone else is relying on information they provided,” said Carr. “And CrowdStrike was the one to declare this the work of the Russians.”
The CrowdStrike argument relies heavily on the fact that remnants of a piece of malware known as AGENT-X were found in the DNC computers. AGENT-X collects and transmits hacked files to rogue computers.
“AGENT-X has been around for ages and ages, and its use has always been attributed to the Russian government, a theory that’s known in the industry as ‘exclusive use,’” Carr said. “The problem with exclusive use is that it’s completely false. Unlike a bomb or an artillery shell, malware doesn’t detonate on impact and destroy itself. ...
Carr said he is aware of at least two working copies of AGENT-X outside Russian hands. One is in the possession of a group of Ukrainian hackers he has spoken with, and the other is with an American cybersecurity company. “And if an American security company has it, you can be certain other people do, too,” he said.
There’s growing doubt in the computer security industry about CrowdStrike’s theories about AGENT-X and Russian hackers, Carr said, including some critical responses to a CrowdStrike report on Russian use of the malware to disable Ukrainian artillery.
There is absolutely not consensus among private computer security security companies that Russia is to blame. At most one can say there is circumstantial evidence that appears to point to Russia, but that of course is not "proof" -- and even that rests on the credibility of a single company, CrowdStrike, which was recently discredited following their false attribution of another hack (in Ukraine) to Russia. Other computer security professionals are agnostic or skeptical about the narrative. Adlerschloß (talk) 05:48, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, Adlerschloß I'm afraid you have captured the spirit of this page, Groundhog Day… It goes like this: new people show up calling the article biased, defenders of the status quo call them fringe POV disruptors, some regulars point out the article has been flawed from day one, defenders call the arguments a dead horse, and everybody leaves exhausted. — JFG15:12, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
And then there are statements like this:
::I'm guessing there's an article in SD Zeitstuff that says 2/17 = "nearly half?" SPECIFICO talk 00:39, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
which prompted me to create the Dis-counting section immediately above in order to get a better sense of the numbers. If things run true to form, my posting of this msg or the thread will prompt a threat.Humanengr (talk) 17:00, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
If you Google alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, obviously you will find sources that have used alleged because that’s what you have asked Google to cherry pick. However, if you perform the same search without alleged, you will find copious RS that do not use the word. You will still find the word allege here and there, but, mostly as to the purpose of the interference, not to whether there was interference. Objective3000 (talk) 17:32, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
The first page of Google results without the word alleged are generally referring to the title of a US intelligence report (which, again, is itself clearly not a reliable source), or are quoting figures like John MCain and Dick Cheney. What reliable sources actually state that interference occurred? Certainly no proof has been publicised and this itself has been repeatedly acknowledged -- see:
U.S. Spy Report Blames Putin for Hacks, But Doesn’t Back It Up
("No smoking gun, but evidence suggests a Russian source for the cyber attacks on Democrats.")
("No smoking gun for Russian DNC hacks")
("It certainly remains plausible that Russians hacked the DNC, and remains possible that Russia itself ordered it. But the refrain of Russian attribution has been repeated so regularly and so emphatically that it’s become easy to forget that no one has ever truly proven the claim.")
Noam Chomsky says claims of Russian interference have made the US the laughingstock of the world. Matt Taibbi has characterised the narrative as a yet to be proven conspiracy theory. Stephen Cohen at The Nation has challenged and deconstructed the narrative. Clearly whether there is even any actual proof at all of these allegations is a matter that itself is being heavily discussed and debated by leading American commentators and academics -- that alone signifies that these are allegations, so of course the best article title would reflect that. The entire narrative of Russian "interference" is arguably false, and obviously has not been proved. There seems to be no valid argument whatsoever to not include the word allegations in the title. Adlerschloß (talk) 20:21, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
However, if you look at the article intro, you will find that it focuses on U.S. government actions (investigations, warnings, …). Those RS's that 1) don't speak in terms of 'alleged' or 'accused', or 2) cite the Oct 2016 or Jan 2017 report without repeating verbatim the words from the reports, have a biased agenda, and hence are not 'reliable' despite (or because of) their editorial review. Humanengr (talk) 18:46, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
The NYT and WaPo are secondary sources and do not have a biased agenda that is shown every time they fail on my points 1 and 2 above. Humanengr (talk) 21:10, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Of course newspapers have a bias, as do national intelligence agencies. Plus different outlets, and sometimes the same outlet, will frame their language in different terms, often not with any substantive purpose sentence by sentence (ie sometimes they will talk about "allegations"; other times they will not). And the allegations of interference are of course exactly that – allegations – just as the "conclusions" of US intelligence agencies are exactly that, conclusions of those agencies, nothing more. They are not courts of law or arbiters of fact. It is reasonable for this page to state this is what the agencies, with some equivocation, have stated. However, it should also frame the overall issue as one of alleged interference, both as to its existence and as to its scope. Sadly, political discourse in the US over this issue has become, for want of better words, somewhat deranged and paranoid. Perhaps this page could rise above that and be a bit more objective, and accept that *no one knows* what happened, if anything, yet? N-HHtalk/edits21:14, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
@N-HH: I agree basically 100% with your above statement. The major problem with this article, in my opinion, is that it fails to divide between what is known as fact, and what is allegation. We've had a discussion above about the use of "alleged" in sources, and I think it's clear that most reliable sources are treating "Russian interference in the 2016 US elections" as an allegation, rather than describing it as a fact. This article tends to state the allegation much more forcefully than most reliable sources do. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:37, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
If you believe that WaPo and NYT are not RS, you are on the wrong page and further discussion here will be fruitless. Take it to WP:RSN (and don’t tell them I sent you). Meanwhile, I'll ignore the characterizations of the work of other editors in your concluding sentences. Objective3000 (talk) 21:18, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Of course they are reliable by WP standards in a general sense. It doesn't follow that WP includes everything they say and does so in the exact same terms every writer on them – on occasion – might happen to say it. N-HHtalk/edits21:21, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
++ I was about to write something similar. Not everything from those sources deemed 'reliable' in a general sense are 'reliable' all the time or any part of the time on a given issue. Humanengr (talk) 21:30, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Read what I wrote. It's not whether I "agree with them"; it's whether they fail on my points 1 or 2 above. They can't change the language without evidencing bias. Humanengr (talk) 22:12, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
The discussion has gone on entirely too long. I have no idea what your points 1 & 2 are. Has it not occurred to you that you are exhibiting bias? Objective3000 (talk) 22:23, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Point #2: Those RS's that cite the Oct 2016 or Jan 2017 report without repeating verbatim the words from the reports. They change the language. That's bias. Humanengr (talk) 22:27, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
1) You are switching the discussion to what "we use" without addressing my point that any 'RS' that cites without repeating verbatim is biased. 2) On your point: There are plenty of 2ary sources that are not biased -- i.e., those that repeat verbatim the words from the reports. Humanengr (talk) 22:43, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
"'News reporting' from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact (though even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors). The 'error' here is the bias. Any characterization of what the PS's stated or 'concluded' except verbatim quotes introduces bias. Humanengr (talk) 23:08, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
@N-HH: You're agreeing with me but not with various others here. Re: "the allegations of interference are of course exactly that – allegations" -- that is at the core of the debate here. Those who are, in effect, in control of the page here choose not to phrase the first sentence (or the title) in terms of 'alleged' (or 'accused'. Humanengr (talk) 21:23, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
The 'error' is your insistence that your opinion is correct, and other people are wrong; which, I believe, you were told elsewhere. One of the points of a talk page is to be convincing. You are not. You are disrupting by continually repeating the same thing. Sorry, but frankly, it's boring. It's a waste of the time of other editors. Objective3000 (talk) 00:23, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@Objective3000:Rather than address the issue of bias in 2ary sources, you first switch the topic to what 'we use'; then again instead of addressing the issue of bias in 2ary sources -- and in response to my civil gesture -- you resort to vapid accusations. You have not addressed my point that changing words changes meaning. It's a simple point. Humanengr (talk) 18:13, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
WP:OR and WP:SYNTH are WP guidelines. But, they do not apply to newspapers. They regularly apply their own research. This is why the NYT has won over 100 Pulitzers. Newspapers don’t simply echo the words of others. This is not bias. It is investigative journalism. Objective3000 (talk) 18:21, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, newspapers "regularly apply their own research", "don’t simply echo the words of others", and do "investigative journalism" -- but when they cite a source and state -- without qualification -- 'source x concluded that y' when source x "concluded with high confidence that y", that is bias. Humanengr (talk) 18:31, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Actually, with high confidence adds emphasis. Concluded does not mean proved. There is always some level of confidence associated with a conclusion. Objective3000 (talk) 18:38, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
The Jan 2017 report used the words "with high confidence" in the report's Key Highlights: "We assess <x, y, and z>. We have high confidence in these judgments." So nothing was added. Removing "with high confidence" removes THE SOURCE's qualification. What harm is there in including those 3 words? Humanengr (talk) 19:12, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Is it in the secondary source? Why add it? Respected sources often remove hyperbole in non-quotes. You are claiming bias when the "qualification" suggests the opposite of the bias you claim. Seriously, if you actually believe that the NYT is biased, take it to RSN. This is a pointless discussion. Objective3000 (talk) 21:07, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
hyperbole: "Deliberate or unintentional overstatement, particularly extreme overstatement." Per the source, DNI:
What We Mean When We Say: An Explanation of Estimative Language
We use phrases such as we judge, we assess, and we estimate—and probabilistic terms such as probably and likely—to convey analytical assessments and judgments. Such statements are not facts, proof, or knowledge. …
Confidence in Assessments. Our assessments and estimates are supported by information that varies in scope, quality and sourcing. Consequently, we ascribe high, moderate, or low levels of confidence to our assessments, as follows:
High confidence generally indicates that our judgments are based on high-quality information, and/or that the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. A “high confidence” judgment is not a fact or a certainty, however, and such judgments still carry a risk of being wrong. …
Absolutely everything has a risk of being wrong. You have shown no bias by NYT or WaPo. This discussion is fruitless. If you have a problem with these sources, take it to WP:RSN. Objective3000 (talk) 22:12, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
I just want to add that the usage of the term "Alleged" is absolutely in order, for a number of reasons. The specific %/net usage of the term by news sources is not particularly relevant, but it does matter. PBS and NPR have virtually the same editorial stance, and they usually use "alleged," but they have also said simply "Russian meddling" without clearly specifying a verdict on the matter, and sometimes, if this is even the specific event they are referring to (though it makes sense, in those cases, to assume that it is). Adlerschloß is absolutely correct to advocate that Misplaced Pages adopt this more careful language, since a number of prominent, reliable sources continue to use the term. What makes the usage of the term unique/relevant is that it persists in reliable journalism; only if the term were absent, would it be safe to say that journalists believe the charge to be proven, and that consumers should be told that this meddling is now a known fact. Because it is not known, journalists sometimes more cautiously call the meddling "alleged," and sometimes not. Those reliable journalists who do not use the term are not, for the most part, endorsing the notion that they have facts the other journalists don't have.
Just because there is a consensus/bias that Misplaced Pages should tacitly endorse a POV which obfuscates the reality of the evidence and investigations, doesn't mean that it should. Misplaced Pages should not be "more confident" in US intelligence agency statements than leading US news sources which almost always use the US gov't as their most trusted source. 71.2.162.64 (talk) 18:56, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
"Actions by Russia that affected the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election"
Somebody created a search-autocomplete entry for this article which declares in Misplaced Pages's voice that Russia's actions "affected the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election".
This unsourced and arguably false claim is nowhere in the article and thus should be removed from related search-engine fluff.
That search phrase doesn't autocomplete for me. How do you know that someone created it?- MrX18:16, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Because it is contained in the pageterms/autocomplete entry table, which you can confirm either by following the link to it above, or by typing "Russian i" into the Misplaced Pages search box (i.e. the word "Russian" followed by the first letter of the word "interference"). Factchecker_atyourservice18:32, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
If you type "Russian i" into the search box, "Actions by Russia that affected the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election" would not logically appear in the list, and it doesn't. I have no idea what the perceived issue is. Readers don't read the results of JSON queries when reading articles.- MrX18:48, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
The issue is that if you start typing the title of this article into Misplaced Pages's search box, Misplaced Pages responds by displaying the text I quoted. I'm not sure why you're speculating that it wouldn't happen, because I've just told you it does and explained how you can confirm that for yourself.
Whatever happens with WP search, which is not easy to use in any event, there must be some more appropriate and effective place to raise whatever concerns you may have. SPECIFICOtalk19:03, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
"if you start typing the title of this article into Misplaced Pages's search box, Misplaced Pages responds by displaying the text I quoted." It doesn't do that for me, nor would I expect it to. Try the Village Pump/technical and/or clear your browser cache. It has nothing to do with content of this article.- MrX19:11, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
That's just user error on your part. It's right there in the second entry in the list. It appears there because the JSON file is called by the search script, which extracts the inappropriate text from the JSON file and displays it in the results. It has zero to do with my "browser cache". Factchecker_atyourservice19:45, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
The confusion is that it does not occur in the search on this page. It occurs on the main page. But, this is not the place to repair it. Objective3000 (talk) 20:41, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Using my browser and skin, it does not appear on the main page either. If I type "Russian i" in the search box, the second thing to appear is the actual title of this article. I have never seen the wording described by FactChecker, anywhere. --MelanieN (talk) 13:01, 17 April 2017 (UTC) P.S. And I just checked using the mobile app on my phone. Still not there. Has it been fixed, or was this never a thing? --MelanieN (talk) 13:08, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Oh, THAT main page! And a subheading. Well, I agree it is inappropriate, but I wonder how big of a problem it really is. --MelanieN (talk) 13:29, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
I've partially, but not fully, restored some content deleted by JFG (with the edit summary "Remove a bunch of off-topic asides and redundant opinions"), although I have edited the text of some to be clearer and more precise. I find much of the material at issue to be very much on topic and not redundant. Going in order:
(1) Page's past contacts with Viktor Podobnyy before becoming a Trump advisor - although this incident took place in 2013, it's relevant because, as the sources reflect, Page was dumped from the team after the FBI investigation into the Podobnyy contacts came to light, and because the sources more generally cover it in the context of the 2016-present investigation into 2016 election interference. I added text to make clear that although the FBI interviewed Page in that case, he was never accused of wrongdoing, which I think we must mention. The relevant, full-length citations are:
(2) Regarding Trump/CIA rupture - deletion of the word "unprecedented." - I can't understand the rationale for this deletion at all. The sources directly describe the rupture as being unprecedented. This is valuable historical information because it signals to readers how unusual it was. The citations reflect that:
New Yorker ("Never before has a President or President-elect spoken so dismissively of the C.I.A.")
ABC News ("an unprecedented public display of acrimony")
(3) Erik Prince section - this was deleted completely. I don't get this deletion as well. Although the Prince/Seychelles meeting occurred after the election, it's clearly related to the page topic. See Washington Post cite ("U.S. officials said the FBI has been scrutinizing the Seychelles meeting as part of a broader probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and alleged contacts between associates of Putin and Trump."). We do appropriately mention that Prince had no formal appointment on the transition team, but that alone does not make the material irrelevant. If there is something we can do to shorten the text without omitting important information, or to add text that reflects any kind of doubt on the significance of the meeting, then of course I'm open to that, but wholesale deletion doesn't seem to be called for here.
(4) Hayden sentence - I've restored a shortened version of the Hayden op-ed. Hayden is a very influential figure (he is more important than McMullin, who gets two sentences), the weight (literally one sentence) is proper, and it's clearly relevant here. Neutrality22:33, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your detailed rationale and partial revert with precise changes, that's refreshing. Here's my take on your remarks:
The Page anecdote of 2013 is over-extended but you explained it more clearly than the version I had trimmed, so I'm fine keeping it this way; some WP readers may appreciate spy novels…
I had removed both qualifiers "immediate and unprecedented" which are non-neutral; keeping "unprecedented" is fine, per sources.
This is a complete side story, entirely based on one source which quotes unnamed officials and remains prudent about the connection and the motives: "an apparent effort to establish a back-channel", "the full agenda remains unclear", "Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.", "alleged contacts between associates of Putin and Trump". Both the White House and Prince strongly denied the innuendo: "“We are not aware of any meetings, and Erik Prince had no role in the transition,” said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary. A Prince spokesman said in a statement: “Erik had no role on the transition team. This is a complete fabrication. The meeting had nothing to do with President Trump." Therefore, I still think this entire section should be deleted. Or at least radically trimmed and balanced with denials.
Thanks; I'm glad we can narrow the range of items under dispute. I don't think that a lack of clarity necessarily demands deletion; given the subject matter, a lot of this is shrouded in mystery. I understand that you would like to see the Prince section go altogether, but what do you have in mind for a "radically trimmed and balanced with denials" alternative? If you have some suggestion, maybe we can agree on a version we can all live with? Neutrality01:26, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
I made changes on the entry for Prince. It is perfectly fine to report allegations even if false provided they have received adequate attention. See for example "Freddie Starr ate my hamster." But we must always explain whether they are facts or allegations and if so whether they are disputed. Furthermore, in this case it is important to explain the supposed reason for the alleged meeting - to get Russian assistance on Iran. Otherwise the implication is that it was part of the alleged Russian conspiracy to overthrow the Republic. TFD (talk) 05:40, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
TFD, where did the idea that the meeting's purpose was "to get Russian assistance on Iran" come from? Maybe I'll have to read the source again. I just don't recall it now. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:16, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
TFD - Half of your edit introduced content directly at odds with the source. There is no dispute that the meeting took place (Prince through his spokesman acknowledged that it took place, but said "The meeting had nothing to do with President Trump"), so the addition "allegedly took place" and "allegations" of a meeting is wrong). The statement "The Trump administration denies the meeting took place" is also incorrect (Spicer said "We are not aware of any meeting"—which is very different from an outright denial). Best, Neutrality20:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
BullRangifer, the article says, "Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would be likely to require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions." I now see that the article did not question whether the meeting took place. However, it is incorrect to imply that it's purpose was to subvert the oldest and strongest democracy the world has ever known. TFD (talk) 17:21, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
GOD BLESS AMERICA!! But are you saying that WP should not report on the foes of America who may subvert the oldest and strongest democracy the world has ever known? Battlestations! There's cleanup to be done on the Nixon, Jefferson Davis, & Alger Hiss. I'll take care of Tokyo Rose. You can work on the Rosenberg's. SPECIFICOtalk17:39, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
After a few days of abundant discussion of this issue on WP:BLP/N#Erik Prince, there is an even split between editors who consider this story a BLP violation and editors who don't. Therefore we should err on the side of caution and remove the material until such time that it gets corroborated by independent reporting or new facts. — JFG07:59, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
There is an exact even split of 7 to 7 at the BLPN discussion; I have carefully listed all editors who commented there. But of course you reverted the contents claiming no consensus… Well we can say there's no consensus to remove the story and we can say there's no consensus to retain it, so how do you propose we solve this? Per BLP policy we must err on the side of caution, so "no consensus to keep" should trump "no consensus to remove" in this case (pardon my pun). — JFG11:06, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Nope, you've miscounted; it's 8 to 4 or 5. If you'd like me to list each editor, I can. There is zero consensus that mentioning the cited Erik Prince activity is a BLP violation. Softlavender (talk) 13:51, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
This contention there's a problem with RS content is a nonsense attack that has been decisively rejected at BLPN, where it made its unfortunate appearance as an ex-post defense of a 1RR DS violation. And P.S. we don't count votes around here, especially by involved or self-interested parties. Anyway, the aye's are above the no's. SPECIFICOtalk13:38, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
I was going to suggest no boom, just that they be warned not to waste ANI time with content disputes. But, it was closed so fast, I didn’t have time to respond. Objective3000 (talk) 12:40, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Agree ANI was probably the wrong venue (currently), but when people are insisting content like this simply has to be here, while at the same time repeatedly removing content like this, there's obviously a problem. The Prince story really is speculation, at least as to the reason for the meeting and the connection to the Trump campaign, based on newspaper innuendo; Carr is a well-known IT expert offering their assessment, whose opinion is being directly cited and attributed. Funnily enough of course the former story chimes with one side's view of the issue, while the latter does not. N-HHtalk/edits12:44, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
Should information from Jeffrey Carr that conflicts with the CrowdStrike report and US government intelligence assessment that Russia was responsible for hacking the DNC (as detailed in the Miami Herald , Harper's , and Fortune ) be included in this article's section on "Cybersecurity analysis", and should information from the International Institute for Strategic Studies corroborating on CrowdStrike's credibility problems (described to Voice of America: ) be included as well? Adlerschloß (talk) 12:49, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Survey
Conditional support - I would support a shorter version of this, without direct quotes, provided that someone can find at least one or two solid additional sources. The Miami Herald and VOA are reliable, but I'm concerned about the story being promoted in Breitbart, The Daily Mail, fringe blogs, and RT. Carr seems to dismiss CrowdStrike's findings on rather flimsy reasoning, in my opinion. Regardless, his expert view should be represented once it passes WP:DUEWEIGHT.- MrX14:00, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Based on the two additional sources presented (Harpers and Forbes), I now believe that a couple of sentences discussing Carr's criticism of CrowdStrike's findings should be included per WP:NPOV. Softlavender, did you really just reject a reputable source because of it's geographic proximity to Trump's other White House?- MrX15:07, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Conditional oppose It is (as I say below) not exactly accurate as to what the sources say. It needs rewording, not just shortening. There is also as issue with Undue, CrowdStrike are not the only IT security firm to claim Russian interference, so it rejects just one piece of evidence, the article is not about them.Slatersteven (talk) 14:07, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose use of Voice of America material, since that is simply Trump's mouthpiece. Also Oppose use of Miami Herald as a source, as that regional newspaper is way too close to Trump's Mar-a-Lago. If there is a major reliable unbiased national newspaper that says the same thing, then I would be open to reviewing that. Softlavender (talk) 14:23, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
What a bizarre rationale to exclude mainstream sources! Who said VOA is "Trump's mouthpiece"? If the Miami Herald is too close to Mar-a-Lago for comfort, then would the New York Times be way too close to Trump Tower?? Where does this end??? This argument makes no sense at all, sorry. Focus on the contents rather than the messenger. — JFG15:04, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
"would the New York Times be way too close to Trump Tower??" No, because New Yorkers hate Trump. That's why he goes to Mar-a-Lago every weekend. Plus the New York Times is a highly respected national and international newspaper, and is the newspaper of record for the U.S. Softlavender (talk) 15:13, 17 April 2017 (UTC); edited Softlavender (talk) 15:23, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support These are reliable sources and coverage in various sources establishes weight. I agree that coverage in unreliable sources does not establish weight, but that is a red herring since none have been presented. TFD (talk) 15:15, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Generally Oppose The problems with the text are manyfold. First, there’s too much speculation. Carr admits he doesn’t have all the evidence known to the agencies that have reported Russian influence in the election. He criticizes one of the sources based on a belief that they were incorrect in another case, while ignoring other sources. He argues that a report does not prove a case; but that report cannot include classified info. He was not a part of any of the deliberations behind the report. He is a private consultant with no direct connection. I’m also bothered by the statement growing doubt in the computer security industry. He does not speak for the industry and provides scant evidence for such a general statement. Pronouncements like this reflect poorly on his testimony. I also am troubled by Carr’s statements that he knows what investigations the FBI did and did not perform. I’m also bothered by the attack on CrowdStrike in a different case. CrowdStrike and Carr may be competitors and Carr has made strong statements about CrowdStrike in the past. (Apparently he detests McAfee whose execs funded CrowdStrike .) As an aside, Carr’s comments in Harpers are sarcastic in nature and comments elsewhere are dismissive. It just sounds like someone on the outside upset he isn’t on the inside. I’m not casting any aspersions, it just doesn’t sound like a good source. BTW, I think he is no longer associated with Taia Global Inc. Possibly a one or two sentence mention with a better source is acceptable. Objective3000 (talk) 15:47, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
OpposeJeffrey Carr is barely notable, and this opinion column by the former TV columnist of a lesser-tier newspaper doesn't elevate JC's expertise to anything near significant enough to publish in Misplaced Pages. And how reliable is the source when the columnist refers to Carr as being CEO of this defunct wannabe cyberstartup that apparently raised a total of $80,000 venture capital funding before its demise? Talk is cheap, but WP is not. Lesser opinion columnists will smile-and-dial until they get some fodder for an op-ed, but consider the source. And the biases that (however unfortunately) select against the best expert comment appearing in the least expert publications. SPECIFICOtalk16:31, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support - per WP:NPOV, but agree with MrX that a couple of sentences is sufficient. Other sources that quote Carr include: Associated Press, PBS Newshour, McClatchy and Arstechnica, not in depth coverage from these particular sources mentioned, but still enough to indicate that Carr's opinion was given some weight, and with the additional sources listed above I believe that a couple of sentences is warranted per WP:DUEWEIGHT. Prior to this (in 2014 and 2015), Carr's opinion has also been featured in Newsweek and CNN.Isaidnoway(talk)16:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support – Carr was not the only one pointing out that the incriminated hacking tools were freely available to anybody, and not exclusive to people connected to Russian intelligence services; a bunch of cybersecurity experts have cast legitimate doubt on the inferences attributing the DNC hacks to Russian sources, e.g. John McAfee and Kevin Poulsen come to mind. However I think we can do with shorter prose, and we don't need to repeat Carr's statements about CrowdStrike's reputation. Here's proposed text with other sources: — JFG16:59, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Cybersecurity analyst Jeffrey Carr stated that CrowdStrike's inferences pointing at the Russian intelligence services were baseless because the incriminated X-Agent tool was freely available for anyone to download. Wordfence and Errata Security noted that the PHP malware referenced in the JAR was an out-of-date version "used by hundreds if not thousands of hackers, mostly associated with Russia, but also throughout the rest of the world."
Um, gee. This RfC is about Carr. Let's try to stay focused here. RfC should be closed, since nobody really seems to think Carr is a notable cyberexpert security guy. SPECIFICOtalk17:07, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose undue weight, marginal notability of Carr, and doubtful relevance of Ukrainian howitzers to DNC hacking. Geogene (talk) 17:11, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support: Carr has been cited by a number of newspapers, as well as the wire agency AP (). In connection with another cybersecurity story, he's recently been cited by the New York Times as well (), so he's clearly regarded as an expert commentator by at least several newspapers. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Support per TFD. Anyone who doubts he's notable should check out his bio and mentions here, here (there are more) and of course the Miami Herald. He is on of the more notable and knowledgeable voices on the issue. Keep in mind however that the malware fingerprint was not the only evidence found. So Carr can cast doubt on some of Crowdstrike's findings, but the he never said that the evidence was nonexistent, only that it is less conclusive than some think. Editors who are afraid that readers might misinterpret the proposed text as saying that no evidence exists, should actually take a moment to learn something topic and summarize the existing evidence for the readers — instead of trying to keep notable minority view points out. Guccisamsclub (talk) 19:44, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. Here is text under discussion. It tells, among other things, that CrowdStrike itself was found by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 2017 to have used data erroneously to falsely accuse Russia of being responsible for hacking a Ukrainian military artillery app. (ref). First of all, that is irrelevant to the subject of this page. Second, after reading the source, it appears that a report by CrowdStrike (on a different subject!) was disputed and needed some corrections, but was not actually wrong. This suggestion looks like a poisoning the well. My very best wishes (talk) 20:25, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose as proposed per several editors above. Yes, per MVBW, this is just a thinly veiled attempt at a POV poisoning the well. Yes, per Geogene, the person is not really notable. On the other hand if this can be properly worded - perhaps the way that Guccisamsclub suggest with the "less conclusive" conclusion actually in the text then maybe.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:14, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Minor include - google is showing me reports about these on VOA, PBS, Politifact, Harpers, Wired, Ars Technica, Slate, Mother Jones, Daily Mail, News Day, .... so has some mainstream presence. But the quantity of mentions is much smaller and the ones I looked at had him as a brief bit, more of a side remark about a dissenting voice in a larger article. So I'd say shoot for a minor include is OK, but kind of optional and not to be done if there is something else giving doubts with larger prominence. Markbassett (talk) 00:08, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
User:SPECIFICO Yes, as I recall basically Google turned them up from '"Jeffrey Carr" russia hacking', and then I paged thru and noted the URLs of places that seemed notable, and read the google snippet and clicked thru to read detail sometimes. (If you want a specific one then make it '"Jeffrey Carr" russia hacking VOA' or whatever.) Again, those seemed mostly to give him just a brief mention -- but that he is noted by them seemed some WP:WEIGHT. Markbassett (talk) 19:35, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Support including Carr's claims given his reputation and coverage of the claim (Miami Herald, Fortune and particularly Harper's.) Wait for additional sourcing on International Institute for Strategic Studies report – VOA is borderline. James J. Lambden (talk) 20:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
Oppose This isn't even mentioned in our article on Carr. If this fringey opinion is mentioned at all in WP it should be there, not here. See WP:ONEWAY. Jytdog (talk) 20:43, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
@K.e.coffman: What the article really needs is balance. While the article should be substantially shortened (it's become a coatrack for everything Russia-related in US politics), we shouldn't be excluding only material which is critical of the allegations made by US intelligence agencies. The significant criticism of US intelligence reports should be noted in the article. The article is chock-full of lengthy quotes from US intelligence, and has a separate section for nearly every single allegation that some person is connected to Russia. Until that bloat is addressed, I don't think we should be paring down the underrepresented dissenting viewpoints. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:14, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Discussion
If we have one bunch of "industry outsiders" opinions I see no reason why we should not have another.Slatersteven (talk) 12:55, 17 April 2017 (UTC):However your text, I think, does not reflect very well what the source says.Slatersteven (talk) 12:59, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Carr was not really "speculating" about anything at all but describing problems with CrowdStrike's report and how it does not amount to proof. And we already include citations from several "industry outsiders" expressing degrees of agreement with the CrowdStrike report. Adlerschloß (talk) 13:37, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Objective3000, indeed it is opinion not fact. But so is the entire story. And weight requires us to report opinions. TFD (talk) 15:47, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Note: Adlerschloß, you need to indicate in your OP what "information from Carr" you are talking about, who "Carr" is, what "CrowdStrike report" you are talking about, and what "information from IISS" you are talking about. Otherwise, this RfC is completely incomprehenible and invalid. Softlavender (talk) 14:04, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Regarding additional reliable sources requested by MrX, Carr's viewpoints were also discussed in Harper's and Fortune . These discuss more than just the CrowdStrike report but would be appropriate to include in the same section (Cybersecurity analysis). Adlerschloß (talk) 14:21, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Regarding Softlavender's remarks alleging the Miami Herald to be unreliable for reasons of geography, I will point out that Mar-a-Lago is 90 miles away from Miami, and that the Miami Herald endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in the 2016 election: Adlerschloß (talk) 14:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
That doesn't matter. Trump won the election and is in power, and that regional newspaper is his regional newspaper. Carr lives in Seattle. The fact that only the Miami Herald would interview him is telling, as is the fact that he is the founder of a failed cybersecurity startup, and the fact that he only posts on Medium (a blogsite) and LinkedIn. Softlavender (talk) 15:10, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
MMfA has mentioned the coverage. I note that no other papers have picked up the story from the Miami Herald, so we need to be sure that we be clear the story has had limited mainstream coverage, but was widely reported in right-wing sources, the Daily Mail and RT. TFD (talk) 16:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
It's disruptive to jump from one bad edit to a month-long RfC struggling to shoehorn Carr back into the article. It's already well-established consensus on this talk page that JC is not RS this stuff. SPECIFICOtalk16:33, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
We are not using Carr as a source, we are using the Miami Herald. Note that reliability relates to facts, while the issue is whether to include his opinion, which is an issue of weight alone. Whether or not his opinion should be mentioned is decision of reliable secondary sources, such as the Miami Herald.TFD (talk) 17:35, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
The Miami Herald opinion columnist's references to Carr's bio read like out-of-date material from Carr's LinkedIn page. "International cybersecurity expert" etc. Entrepreneur etc. Grey Goose etc. All defunct. From the best available information, JC appears to be a retiree who may be available to answer the phone for a journalist but is hardly in the loop these days. SPECIFICOtalk00:50, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
The Miami Herald article referenced is not a column, but a news article appearing in their national section. And as other references in above discussion and survey indicate, Carr's analysis on this subject is considered noteworthy by many reliable sources. Adlerschloß (talk) 05:43, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Regarding remarks by Myverybestwishes accusing me of bad faith edits -- it is potentially valid to argue that the erroneous CrowdStrike report on Ukraine is irrelevant to this specific article (although I disagree, as VOA in two separate articles linked these errors to CrowdStrike's narrative on election interference), but you are not accurate in flatly stating that CrowdStrike's report "wasn't wrong" in some objective sense. CrowdStrike retracted their allegations of combat losses caused by a military artillery app hack (their false reading of IISS data was the premise behind their overall narrative) while not retracting their larger claim that a hack occurred (although per their corrections it would seem they argue a hack occurred that was meaningless or had no tangible effect); but the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense argues that neither the combat losses nor the hack occurred at all, see: Adlerschloß (talk) 09:41, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
I do believe you misinterpreted these sources, possibly because you did not read them carefully. Here is your link, and here is "retraction" by CrowdStrike your source refers to. This "retraction" tells, According to an update ... the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost between 15% and 20% of their pre-war D–30 inventory in combat operations and This previously unseen variant of X-Agent represents FANCY BEAR’s expansion in mobile malware ... reveals one more component of the broad spectrum approach to cyber operations taken by Russia-based actors in the war in Ukraine. It further tells (as relates to the subject of this page): The collection of such tactical artillery force positioning intelligence by FANCY BEAR further supports CrowdStrike’s previous assessments that FANCY BEAR is likely affiliated with the Russian military intelligence (GRU), and works closely with Russian military forces operating in Eastern Ukraine and its border regions in Russia. This is not retraction, as also clear from reading your link/source completely, instead of indiscriminately citing only the first phrase. My very best wishes (talk) 16:33, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
My Very Best Wishes mentions that the IISS criticizes CrowdStrike for another analysis supposedly unrelated to the current one and therefore we cannot mention it. But it is a reasonable assumption that if a CrowdStrike has been wrong in the past they are less likely to be right now. Not something we can say, but a conclusion in a reliable source that we can report. Unless one subscribes to the gambler's fallacy. TFD (talk) 04:23, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Also a tiny minority viewpoint, far out of line with coverage in the bulk of sources. I don't see how the alleged hacking in Ukraine relates to the DNC hacks, and I also don't see how CrowdStrike's choice of sources for Ukrainian battlefield casualty rates are related to its competency (or lack of it) in regards to cybersecurity. As far as I know, they aren't in the kind of business that Stratfor or Jane's Defence Weekly are in. So all of this seems like a tremendous stretch on both counts. Geogene (talk) 23:07, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
This article makes little or no mention of the intelligence community's revised conclusions, instead treating the conclusions they came to in 2016 as final. National intelligence agencies have since revised their conclusions and admitted to uncertainty about Russian involvement in the elections. The very first sentence of this article implies that US intelligence agencies are still certain of Russian involvement, and will be interpreted by the majority of readers as if it were still the case. Please update this article to reflect the newer information. 204.77.37.230 (talk) 21:46, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Currently trying to find them again - but either way, calling it "interference" is implying that it prevented the election system from working the way it is intended to. Can releasing the truth really be called "interference", regardless of who released it or why? If they released lies and the democrats denied them, and there was no proof, then it would be interference. ConservativeTrumpism (talk) 21:58, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Perhaps you're confusing "influence" with "interference"? If you read past the lead of the article and examine some of the cited sources, you should see why "interference" is a good word to describe what happened. I look forward to seeing your sources supporting that "the intelligence community's revised conclusions".- MrX23:18, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
If it ain't broke don't fix it. The lede summarizes the many RS that discuss interference and are cited throughout the article. SPECIFICOtalk02:05, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
Then if it's true ant it's "concluded" in October 2016, what exactly is the FBI investigating as the Director said in March? --DHeyward (talk) 02:15, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
As of October, Russia was known to have interfered in the election. As of March, the FBI was investigating whether the Trump campaign was complicit in that interference. Geogene (talk) 02:38, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
Hello. I am contemplating these two changes to the article structure. If there are no objections I can do this tomorrow (after I write a stub for the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies).
remove the empty heading 3.1 (Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security and CIA)
combine sections 3.1.4 and 3.1.5 (Vladimir Putin involvement, and Russian think tanks) under one heading, up a level: Russian involvement (obviously neither one is a member of U.S. intelligence)
Good idea; I did some copyediting on your text, and here are a few remarks on the proposed structure:
the 3.1 heading groups assessments made by the cited agencies; if you remove it, their statements must still be attributed.
section 3.1.4 talks about the agencies' analysis and assertions regarding Putin's involvement, so this must stay within the "U.S. intelligence analysis" section
section 3.1.5 looks like independent reporting, citing several unnamed officials, so it should be indeed moved out, perhaps to a new section under "U.S. intelligence analysis" (Reuters does not say from which agency or agencies their sources came).
So the structure would look like this (structure A):
3 U.S. intelligence analysis
3.1 Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security and CIA
3.1.1 Brennan briefs Gang of Eight (could be perhaps titled differently – section talks a lot about GCHQ, and few people know who is the Gang of Eight)
3.1.2 October 2016 joint statement
3.1.3 December 2016 CIA report
3.2 Federal Bureau of Investigation
3.3 December 2016 Joint Analysis Report
3.4 January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment
3.5 Russian think tank
3.6 Vladimir Putin involvement
3.7 Investigation into financial flows
3.8 Preservation of evidence
Or we could use a fully flattened structure B:
3 U.S. intelligence analysis
3.1 GCHQ tips and CIA briefings to Congress
3.2 October 2016 ODNI / DHS joint statement
3.3 December 2016 CIA report
3.4 FBI inquiries
3.5 December 2016 FBI / DHS Joint Analysis Report
3.6 January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment
More to contemplate. Not exactly, because I was thinking that the Russians need their own section. In other words, make this article speak in an active voice. I disagree that Putin "must" remain inside U.S. intelligence. He was a central actor and is able to stand on his own. I think "tips" belittles GCHQ's contributions but I agree it is more clear to name them in a heading. I'm going to think about this for another day. We can see if anybody else has a thought, too. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:21, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Sure, there's no rush. Russians do have their section already, it's called "Russian government response". The current structure makes a useful distinction between what US intelligence agencies and government have stated about Russia and Putin on the one hand, and what Russian government officials have stated or done in reaction, on the other hand. I believe we should keep those sections distinct, although they can probably be re-titled. — JFG17:53, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: OK I thought about it, thanks. I agree that my first suggestion might be better reached by renaming to say GCHQ in the heading. Would you care to take care of that? The empty heading above it is pretty much meaningless, so I appreciate your structure B above that eliminates that prominent third level "Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security and CIA". -SusanLesch (talk) 13:44, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
The Russians, on the other hand, need to be represented differently. I realize you disagree with me but give me a day or so and I think we can arrange this to make better sense. -SusanLesch (talk) 13:39, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
@SusanLesch: I flattened the structure and improved the headers according to proposal B. I see that you moved all chapters about Russia into a new section at the top of the article, so I didn't touch that. However I must say it doesn't make much sense to a new reader, for example to see a section called "Russian government response" before we explain to what they are responding. I let you ponder the best arrangement, I have no clear suggestion at this time. — JFG20:28, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
Very nice, thank you for the new heading and structure. I'm surprised that moving the Russians up front mystifies you. I am delighted with the straight-ahead account. The Russian government was, quite obviously, responding to the preceding accusations from U.S. intelligence. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:39, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Is there an Admin in the house?
Do not bring requests for discretionary sanctions here. Editors who do so may be sanctioned themselves. --NeilN15:24, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
The second of which is part of a slo-mo edit war misrepresenting the cited source's term "Trump-friendly conspiracy theorists" (omitted from edit summary) which he'd purged at least once previously here .
SPECIFICOtalk02:14, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
@JFG: Any uninvolved admin (*raises hand*) may enforce discretionary sanctions. The second diff shows a manual revert (rather than an undo) but still a second revert within 17 hours of the previous revert. Since it happened over ten hours ago and other editors have acted since then, I will have to say that it's stale. That said, JFG, you did violate 1RR and so are in the wrong on this matter. Maybe you went to sleep and forgot or something, I don't know, but perhaps you should be thinking in terms of "1 revert every 36 hours" to avoid that happening again. If you continue to violate 1RR on this article, you can be blocked or topic banned. Ian.thomson (talk) 09:05, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Looking into it further, I see that there's a pattern and that JFG has been told to stop repeatedly. Ok, not handling it the way I would at WP:EW (where "stale" would apply) but as a long term issue. Ian.thomson (talk) 09:15, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Today I rearranged this article to come to the point--Russia interfered in the election the U.S. alleges that Russia interfered in the election. (The ODNI report says that its sources are part of the classified report.) (Before and After.) Perhaps it is time for a show of hands. Kindly either Support or Oppose this major change in article order. I am pleased to have this more direct approach, but not without consensus. -SusanLesch (talk) 03:12, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
!Votes
Discussion
It depends. Has "Russia interfered in the election" been 'determined beyond any doubt'? If so, in which venue? Kindly clarify.your premise. 07:54, 24 April 2017 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Humanengr (talk • contribs)
Thx for responding, SusanLesch. That quote in the second sentence says "expressed 'high confidence'". Are you interpreting that as 'determined beyond any doubt'? Humanengr (talk) 15:18, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
No. I would have linked "high confidence" to if it wasn't inside a quotation (prohibited by WP:LINKSTYLE). I don't think "determined beyond any doubt" is the criterion for arranging this article, when 17 intelligence agencies agreed, do you? -SusanLesch (talk) 15:34, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
@SusanLesch: Are you saying that when American intelligence agencies make a claim, Misplaced Pages should consider it a fact? That's how I read your above statement, and I sincerely hope that I'm wrong. If that's what flies on Misplaced Pages, the project might as well give up any pretension to WP:NPOV. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:06, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I was reacting to your "Russia interfered in the election" which you used in your prefacing remark.That presents as a statement of fact. I think we can agree that while it has been established "with high confidence" by U.S. investigating agencies, it has not been (and will likely never be) established as fact by any court (much less than international court as this is a dispute between nations). Would you be comfortable in changing your preface to "U.S. allegations that Russia interfered in the election"? That the U.S. alleges such-and-such -- which is a fact -- should be sufficient for your framing order. Humanengr (talk) 17:10, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Comment. This maybe logical to some degree. Before debating any claim (of the interference or whatever), one must explain what the claim was about. However, this should go only after "Background" section, and yes, "Russian government response" should only go later - agree with JFG. My very best wishes (talk) 12:26, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
The Background section covers 3 topics: hostility between Putin and Clinton, email leaks, and a Counter-Disinformation Team that was scrapped in 2015. Nothing there challenges or enhances the ODNI report. I'm not opposed to having Background first but why, when rather than stating the accusations is it dancing around? I mean really. If Guccifer is a Russian email hacker why doesn't this article say so? And more generally why does Misplaced Pages front-load pack-rat information? -SusanLesch (talk) 14:36, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
If something should be said up front, this should go to the lead, but I think the lead fairly summarizes the content already. Of course it might be logical to start from providing solid facts related to the subject of the page and discuss any controversial matters later, and I am telling about any pages on political controversies in general. But what is the set of indisputable facts related to this case? Can the "interference" be described as a certain "operation" that consisted from several phases, such a "planning", doing (a), doing (b), etc, and what these phases are? I am not sure. My very best wishes (talk) 15:26, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Good questions. Best I know is that the overall operation came in two parts. Both are outlined in the second section about RISS. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:23, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Q re lede sentence
Why does the lede sentence cite an article that in turn cites a source (the Oct 2016 'statement') that was superseded (by the Jan 2017 report)? Humanengr (talk) 11:16, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
It makes sense to quote the October 2016 WaPo article because that's the first time the IC agencies offered a clear statement accusing Russia of interfering in the election. So that's where the affair began, and it's a good starting point for the Misplaced Pages treatment. — JFG13:06, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
That gets to the other problem: the lede sentence does not "quote the October 2016 WaPo"; that article does not use the word "concludes". But it does have 'accuses' in its title. Both the cite and its use are problematic. Humanengr (talk) 13:42, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
You are correct that this particular source does not use "concluded", although many later sources do. There are so many words we could use: "asserted", "affirmed", "stated", "expressed", "determined", "said", "accused", and I think most editors are tired of this debate, no matter which word they think is best. — JFG15:52, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Referencing and citation: not checked
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Or not. Tagging is useful but how do we work together towards neutrality when one group of "guardians" keeps insisting that there is no neutrality problem because only the "mainstream view" counts (and then cherry-picks what is mainstream enough)? — JFG 21:24, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks; I have incorporated all your suggestions except Kushner who is not named in the cited sources, and the word "stolen" which is redundant with "hacked"; replaced "provided" with "forwarded"; used "stop interfering" per source, to avoid repeating "cyberattacks". Hope this addresses your objections so you can move to a full Support !vote. — JFG 06:20, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
-- BullRangifer (talk) 06:49, 13 April 2017 (UTC)