4 ms·
That's certainly the sort of thing that can happen, but as far as I can tell the COIN report was within Wikipedia norms, and closing the report two minutes late
by mjw1007 8y ago
That's certainly the sort of thing that can happen, but as far as I can tell the COIN report was within Wikipedia norms, and closing the report two minutes later with "Zero evidence of COI. Galloway has picked a fight with Cross, not the other way around." was not.
(Unless "don't criticise a top-1000 user" counts as a Wikipedia norm, I suppose.)
I disbelieve that that the admin in question is both a neutral arbiter and capable of determining within two minutes that Cross is not an "avowed rival" of Galloway (see WP:BLPCOI), particularly given the "And being attacked by RT and George Galloway is a reasonably reliable indicator that you are doing something right" bit on his talk page.
[The relevant part of BLPCOI is:
« Therefore, an editor who is involved in a significant controversy or dispute with another individual—whether on- or off-wiki—or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person »
]
- tptacek 8y agoA biased point of view isn't a conflict of interest. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#What_is_conflict_of_interest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest...? We all have biases. But we have conflicts when we have direct relationships with topics. Similarly: edits are supposed to have NPOV. But editors almost always have a POV.
- mjw1007 8y agoQuick summary of what happened next for anyone who comes across this thread in the future: Under pressure from outside, the wikipedia admins decided to reopen this case. They fairly quickly came to consensus that Cross was violating the paragraph of the biography-of-living-persons-conflict-of-interest policy quoted above and banned him from editing Galloway's article. There's continuing discussion of whether Cross is doing anything more seriously wrong.