Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:30, 2 January 2025

January 2025

Welcome to Misplaced Pages. We appreciate your contributions, but in one of your recent edits to United States Army Special Forces, it appears that you have added original research, which is against Misplaced Pages's policies. Original research refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and personal experiences—for which no reliable, published sources exist; it also encompasses combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a reliable source for all of your contributions. You can have a look at the tutorial on citing sources. Thank you. ⇒SWATJester 17:05, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Please do not add or change content, as you did at United States Army Special Forces, without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Misplaced Pages:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. ⇒SWATJester 17:06, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you add unsourced or poorly sourced material to Misplaced Pages, as you did at United States Army Special Forces. ⇒SWATJester 17:16, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Final warning

It's clear that you are not familiar with our policy on reliable sourcing -- your edits have so far consisted of unsourced claims, removal of sourced content, or claims with a reference that does not support your edits. This is disruptive, and you've been adequately warned multiple times, yet continue to edit war to push your edits against our required policies. So this is a final warning: The next time you add original research, or remove or misrepresent a source as you did on United States invasion of Afghanistan, you will be immediately blocked from further editing. Knock it off. ⇒SWATJester 18:07, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

This is a weird hill to die on, especially because if you read you will see there is no way that Tyson and Olson are two different people. The two operators involved were John "Mike" Spann and David Tyson not Olson... Perhaps Stanton was writing when Tyson was still an operative with CIA and needed to use a pseudonym, but the other operator involved is definitely David Tyson.

Please look at the wikipedia entry for John "Mike" Spann for even further proof. And please consider unblocking as it is very unwarranted given all of my edits have been factually correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/Johnny_Micheal_Spann 8.4.24.34 (talk) 18:28, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Then the correct response would have been to find a reliable source that says Tyson is Olson (and they have to say this directly, not as something that is constructed or "common sense"), not to edit war to remove what reliable sources (Stanton) explicitly say was Olson. Pointing to other wikipedia entries is irrelevant -- other Misplaced Pages articles are not allowed as sources in the first place. Whether you think you're factually correct or not is also irrelevant -- Misplaced Pages has to rely on what our reliable sources say, not what individual editors think they know. Use this time while blocked to familiarize yourself with our verifiability and sourcing standards as you will be expected to abide by them when it expires. ⇒SWATJester 18:35, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Is the CIA source not reliable? I don't see how your can read what is currently written in the wiki article, then read my course and not come to the conclusion that Tyson is not Olson. What would a reliable source be if not the literal employer of the man involved? 8.4.24.34 (talk) 18:40, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Again, as I said before other wikipedia articles are not reliable sources. The CIA article is a primary source talking about itself which we can only use under certain conditions that are not met here, and which is inherently less reliable than a secondary source from a historian like Doug Stanton. But even then, it doesn't actually support the edit you're trying to make -- the CIA review says that "Tyson, Spann, and six other individuals—part of an alphabet soup of small CIA elements representing the initial US response to 9/11" were involved and does not specifically state that Tyson was the one who made contact. It's not our job to "come to the conclusion" about anything -- we need reliable sources to specifically make those claims, to avoid disallowed synthesis. ⇒SWATJester 19:04, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Should I email Stanton directly? Toby Harnden's book First Casualty is a more recent book on the topic and the two CIA operatives involved in the Qala-i-Jangi prison uprising are at the center of the narrative. He doesn't mention Olson ever, but David Tyson is pretty much the central character with Mike Spann and it heavily focuses on the events mentioned wiki area I am trying to correct. How should I go about properly sourcing this if I have Harnden saying the same story is attributed to David Tyson that Stanton is saying is attributed to Dave Olson? Thanks! 8.4.24.34 (talk) 18:50, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Emailing an author directly is not verifiable. It needs to be an unambiguous published statement from a reliable source, e.g. Stanton writing a new book, or another author directly saying Stanton was wrong, or from an academic source stating that they're the same person. Alternatively, if sources don't directly contradict Stanton, but overwhelmingly indirectly do (for instance numerous reliable sources only saying Tyson), then the paragraph should be reworded to indicate the source disagreement with an appropriate maintenance tag (template), or by an explanatory footnote that discusses the name discrepancy. Either way though, removing existing reliable sources entirely, without a discussion or consensus is not the answer. ⇒SWATJester 19:04, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Okay. Another question though. The Wiki reliable sources guidelines state that newer sources should be given higher credibility than older sources. Shouldn't my newer sources supersede the dated source that is Stanton's book? I'm not sure if removing an older inaccurate source while providing a source that is preferable to the original source even by wikipedia's standards is worthy of being told off so many times... Obviously I'm new to editing so I'm not sure I understand why Stanton's source is given so much credence to the point of requiring a footnote. Your dismissal of First Casualty and the CIA review seem pretty subjective and not necessarily in line with wikipedia policy giving added weight to newer sources. 8.4.24.34 (talk) 19:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Age is one of several factors in evaluating the credibility of a source, but unreliable sources or sources that do not directly support a claim cannot be used and thus are never a better source than a reliable source that directly supports a claim, regardless of age. Stanton is a reliable source -- if you think he's not, you should be prepared to provide a policy-based argument for why he's not and examples of other reliable sources saying he's not, and get a consensus for that from editors actively involved with that article. The CIA review is not a reliable source -- it is an SPS writing about itself and fails multiple of the exception requirements for WP:ABOUTSELF: involves claims about third parties, events not directly-related to the subject, is disputed, and comes from the CIA, an entity with a long and demonstrated history of publishing propaganda and disinformation (thus it being reasonable that one could question the authenticity). Further, it's not a academic-style peer-reviewed literature or scholarship review -- this is more akin to a publisher's excerpt blurb. Again, not the same indicia of reliability.

⇒SWATJester  20:21, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

January 2025

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