Ashe Schow (November 25, 2015)."Wikipedia founder advocates for updating policies following 'The Hunting Ground' controversy".Washington Examiner. RetrievedFebruary 8, 2020.Another editor, whose username is BullRangifer, suggested Wikipedia not become "a kangaroo court or lynching" by rushing to ban accounts who break COI. BullRangifer suggested following seven steps to determine whether "The Hunting Ground" crew member should be banned and whether his edits should be removed. Some of the steps included how he handled questions related to his edits and whether he stuck to discussion pages to ask for edits rather than making them himself.
Marcus Gilmer (October 3, 2018)."Wikipedia demotes Breitbart to fake news".Mashable. RetrievedOctober 5, 2018.Support. If anything, it's even more unreliable than the Daily Mail, as they at least use trained journalists, whereas Breitbart is a fringe propaganda organization which lets its extreme partisan bias get in the way of how it reports things, and whether it does so, just as Fox News does. It too should be deprecated, but let's start with Breitbart (and InfoWars). — BullRangifer 17:51, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Alexander Hall (August 13, 2020)."Report: Wikipedia Editors Censoring Evidence Supporting Michael Flynn".NewsBusters. RetrievedAugust 15, 2020.Liberal user Valjean responded by condemning this revelation as 'conspiracy theories' and 'part of a cover-up,' even 'when it comes from the now-sitting government of the USA.' Valjean specified that 'Nothing coming from Trump's Justice Department, FBI, CIA, anything, can be trusted.' Breitbart alleged that Valjean, formerly under the name 'BullRangifer' has been 'previously involved in slanting articles about the Russia investigation.'
Raymond Sturman (October 23, 2024)."Top 5 Editing Conflicts in Wikipedia Pages on Religion". World Religion News. RetrievedOctober 24, 2024.Located on the Catholic Church Wikipedia talk page, the screenshot below details a recent discussion of the tension between the Roman Catholic Church and other branches of Catholicism. Editor 'Valjean' is protesting that the word 'Roman' has been removed from the title, arguing that there are other branches of Catholicism, while the Roman Catholic Church says it is the real Catholic Church.
Talk page negotiation table "The best content is developed through civil collaboration between editors who hold opposing points of view." byValjean. FromWP:NEUTRALEDIT
"The quality of Wikipedia articles rises with the number of editors per article as well as a greater diversity among them."[1]
We Just Disagree So let's leave it alone, 'cause we can't see eye to eye. There ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy. There's only you and me, and we just disagree. byDave Mason(Listen)
All topics are allowed at Wikipedia If a new article clearly passes theGeneral Notability Guideline (GNG), and doesn't contain any issues so serious they cannot easily be solved by followingWP:PRESERVE, then there is no conceivable topic that Wikipedia should not cover in depth. None. -- User:Valjean
That is not just an application of WP:NOTCENSORED, but is more importantly an application of the very"purpose of Wikipedia's existence", which Jimbo summed up as "to give free access to the sum of all human knowledge" as it is described in reliable sources:
"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." -- Jimmy Wales (source)
"If I go looking for info, and Wikipedia doesn't have it, then Wikipedia has failed." -- User:Baseball Bugs (source)
The "sum of all human knowledge" literally meansall information, not just what has traditionally been covered in ancient encyclopedias. Wikipedia is different. It documents all facts, opinions, beliefs, lies, conspiracy theories, pseudoscientific nonsense, etc. It documents the existence of it all. There is no topic that is so weird, repulsive, or odd that Wikipedia won't cover it, as long as the defining conditions (above) are met. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)15:58, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop misrepresenting sources,including making up inaccurate quotations, as you didhere.
The actual source says“links,” in the words of the Appointment Order between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.
You wrote"links between the Trump Campaign and individuals with ties to the Russian government", removing several words.
??? Why the vitriol? AGF. There is a "natural" explanation. I did quote VERY exactly from page 66. See the first sentence in the second paragraph. To prevent any misunderstanding, I placed it in quotation marks. For some reason, I stopped reading the rest of the editorial note after "p. 66" and didn't notice the supplied quote in the editorial note. I only noticed the quote should be from page 66, so I searched the whole document, seeing many versions, and also found the quote on page 66, and used it.
I didn't notice the previous one above it in the first paragraph (the one you used) I didn't notice it because it didn't get highlighted by my search terms ("links between"). That's because the one you used is not an exact quote because "links" is actually separated (by the words "in the words of the Appointment Order") from the rest of the quote you used. You "put them together". I used the quote highlighted by my search terms, so I didn't have to do that.
So, sorry about the confusion. I did use an accurate quote and never saw your version before this complaint. There are many variations of that quote throughout the document, and we can choose whichever one we'd like to use, but we should then update the editorial note if we use a version from another page. Search the whole document for "links between" and you'll find them. Here's the content under discussion:
It also identifies "[[Links between Trump associates and Russian officials|links between the Trump Campaign and individuals with ties to the Russian government]]"<!--Pipe text is a direct quote from the report.-->,<ref>''[https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf Mueller Report]'', vol. I, p. 66: "The Office identified multiple contacts{{snd}} 'links', in the words of the Appointment Order{{snd}} between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government."</ref>
Thank you. You are correct that you used a correct quote from different part of the Mueller report, and I must apologise. I thought you were altering the quote that was in the attached ref. Idid check that that quote was also in the Mueller report, but I didn't notice that there was very similar fragment in the next paragraph. There's a subtle difference between the two paragraphs ("The Office identified multiple contacts—"links" v.This Section describes the principal links; the second seems to suggest that the report doesn't cover all "identified" links, but let's not get into too deep into that here.
We generally should avoid using the primary source, the Mueller report, as a source for anything, and use secondary or tertiary sources instead, but citing the report in the lead section is not the worst problem per se as long as NPOV and other relevant policies are adhered to.
I'm partly striking my comment above. Why not everything? I'll explain. You may have noticed that I continued cleaning up articles that link toLinks between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies. I asked you to self-revert your changes, but you failed to responseon the article talk page even though I made my request almost a year ago. I'm not aware of a any self-revert. This is also the issue that brought me back to theMueller report.
Many cases where you changed the link were relatively harmless, e.g. when you only changed the piped link. Other edits were less harmless. E.g. in theMueller report you claimed the report"identifiesmyriad links between Trump associates and Russian officialsand spies" [emphasis added], which was a clear NPOV violation.
InCarter Page youclaimed that"Page was a focus of the 2017 Special Counsel investigation into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officialsand spies" [emphasis added] synthesised the word"suspicious" from two sources (Harding, discredited through Russiagate investigation) even though the first didn't mention Page and second one didn't mention the special counsel investigation, which hadn't even started yet.
Other biographies (or other articles covered by BLP) where you use Harding or other sources, presumably without checking whether the sources name the article subject, includeKevin M. Downing,Rush Limbaugh,Donald Trump filmography. Feel free to correct me if the article subjects are mentioned in the sources. Failing to do that, I maintain that these edits appear to be rather serious misrepresentations. You made the edits more than two years ago, but I consider errors to be "active" until someone fixes them, and I had already alerted you of problems you created when you made edits related to the page move. I'm not delighted that I have to spend so much time fixing errors that may have been avoided if you had not done the out-of-process page move.Politrukki (talk)19:43, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker)WP:PRIMARY does not say primary sources should never be used as a source for anything, but that they should be used with care, and that articles should be predominantly based on, and take their analytical framing from, secondary sources. When used in conjunction with secondary sources, a primary source is fine to use. More importantly we should have these discussions on the article's talk page so others can participate and help to improve the article. You already accused Valjean of misrepresenting sources incorrectly once, and probably an explanation will be found for other changes, or perhaps other disagree about your claim for example:Harding, discredited through Russiagate investigation that is hardly obvious or given. "And spies" was the old name of the article, that is not an NPOV violation. Your tone is highly accusatory and I think inappropriate given that these are not clear-cut issues, and as you mentioned those changes were from years ago.Andre🚐20:17, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have not carefully read the above yet, but I'll drop this here right now. Politrukki, I totally understand how the current misunderstanding happened, and I accept your apology and don't hold anything against you. Shit happens. Ships pass in the night and don't know it. Edit conflicts occur. There are many things that happen here that cause misunderstandings. I'll read the above and comment later. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)20:54, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't recall seeing that. I see you pinged me, but I don't always get pinged. I don't know why. I would have been happy to help you with the job you just did. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)21:01, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've never heard anyone say they didn't receive a notification (AKA pong) pinged uponcorrectly (disclaimer: I haven't received any mention notifications from other users for years because I disabled the function) – even experienced users don't always know they can't fix a ping just by signing the message again. I have confirmed that Wikipedia sent a mention to each user I pinged. You should still be able to checkSpecial:Notifications to see if there's a mention. I often use a subscribe button to subscribe discussions and I've missed some notifications.Politrukki (talk)19:39, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"I don't recall" are acutely relevant at my age. As far as pings go, that is a frequent problem many editors mention. There are various reasons they may not work, and then there's the possibility they worked and were not noticed. I do subscribe to many threads and articles, and I often get notifications, but not all of them. Analyzing my watchlist would show me more, but I don't do that very often anymore. It's just too large, so i depend on pings and subscriptions.
It seems to work like FB social media, which will selectively, according to some algorithm, send notifications for only certain items, but not every item. I don't understand it.
One form of notification I always get is activity on my own talk page.
Whatever the case, if I had noticed the above, I would most likely have offered to help you. As an Aspie, I don't mind boring and repetitive work like that. Whenever I have to move an article, there is a lot of cleanup with the links and redirects to the old article title, and I relish doing that. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)19:54, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding:
" Many cases where you changed the link were relatively harmless, e.g. when you only changed the piped link. Other edits were less harmless. E.g. in theMueller report you claimed the report"identifiesmyriad links between Trump associates and Russian officialsand spies"[emphasis added], which was a clear NPOV violation."
Sometimes Mueller wrote "many", which is a rather vague number meaning more than a "couple", which would be two, and thus meaning more than 3-4. That's how I understand it. When there are over 200 instances of secret links, and they were lied about when discovered, "myriad" is much more accurate and not an NPOV violation.
Also "spies" is accurate. Many of these secret contacts were found during routine surveillance of Russian officials and actual agents (spies). Suddenly, back in 2015, various European allied intelligence agencies (it ended up being eight, including Australia) were discovering that people associated with Trump were talking to those Russians, and it was so suspicious and a threat to democracy that they notified the FBI and CIA. Why would those associated with a current presidential candidate start talking with the Russians, especially since there was already public promise they would support his election, and there was already hacking by Russians starting in 2014? Since "spies" was accurate, that was included in the title of the article for a while. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)21:16, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You would need to prove that"identified myriad links between Trump associates and Russian spies" is a majority view held in reliable sources. They would not have to use those specific words, but they shouldn't be far off. You're going way off topic with"200 instances of secret links" because Mueller definitely did not identify 200 secret links to "spies". An expression like"links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials" is adhering to NPOV, and is so uncontroversial summary of our article that it could be presented without an inline citation, which is not to say I'd recommend removing it.Politrukki (talk)20:46, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Various investigations have uncovered hundreds of contacts between Trump associates and Russian government-linked individuals, not just spies. "Myriad" is an accurate term when dealing with so many links. The numbers vary depending on source.
I do not recall saying"identified myriad links between Trump associates and Russian spies". That's not what I believe or what any RS says, so I suspect you've got that one wrong. I don't know where you found that. It wasLinks between Trump associates and Russian officials, or before thatLinks between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies. We don't know the exact distribution, but I suspect that it was a minority that were actual "agents", but some of them were because of the nature of who was being surveilled. Spies spy on spies. Eight different countries discovered these suspicious and secretive contacts and reported them to the FBI.
The Moscow Project – an initiative of theCenter for American Progress Action Fund – had, by June 3, 2019, documented "272 contacts between Trump's team and Russia-linked operatives ... including at least 38 meetings.... None of these contacts were ever reported to the proper authorities. Instead,the Trump team tried to cover up every single one of them."[1] --Valjean (talk) (PING me)21:55, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(Apologies for taking so long to reply you – I usually don't have a lot of time to edit Wikipedia.)
You're still trying to move goal posts from the "spies" claim. I didn't present"identified myriad links between Trump associates and Russian spies" as a direct quote. It was my attempt to simplify and paraphrase only the disputed subclaim in a clunky sentence (that has too many "ands") – a claim that you now appear to admit is unverifiable.
This is the edit where you claim the Mueller report"identifies myriad links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies". If you didn't mean to claim Mueller identified myriad links between Trump associates and Russian spies, please explain how that was made obvious in your revision. I'm not asking your opinion on how many links you think there were between Trump associates and Russian spies, but rather how a Wikipedia reader should parse your complete claim that Mueller report"identifies myriad links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies" – did Mueller investigators say there were "myriad" links to Russian spies or not?Politrukki (talk)15:11, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are again misquoting me. I did not write "there were "myriad" links to Russian spies" way back when "spies" was part of the title of the article. I still wrote "officials and spies" back then. We do not know the distribution between officials and spies. Many/multiple/myriad are all words used to describe the links between "Trump associates and Russian officials and spies". We do not try to analyse the distribution. If you want to perform the OR (which is allowed on talk pages) to figure that out, feel free to explain it and provide your sources. This could be interesting!
I, like The New York Times, used the word "myriad", which is synonymous with "multiple" and "many". We are allowed to paraphrase and use synonyms. The words are pretty synonymous, but if an exact quote (which should then be in quotation marks) is needed, rather than my paraphrase, then "multiple" would certainly work fine, as Mueller used that word. The use of synonyms like "multiple", "many", or "myriad" applies to any and all articles and topics here that mention the contacts/links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies. It was more than a few. There were a whole lot of contacts, and they lied about them and tried to keep them secret.
The New York Times used "myriad" in this context: "Instead of wrapping up, Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham shifted to a different rationale, hunting for a basis to blame the Clinton campaign for suspicions surrounding myriad links Trump campaign associates had to Russia."[2]
Here is the current version from theMueller report article, and it quotes "multiple", but does not use quotation marks:
It also identifies multiple links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials,[4]
The current wordings in both articles seem fine to me.
Your focus on this old stuff is creepy. You need to move on and stop focusing on me. Focus on current content. Stop using every possible imperfection and error as an opportunity to criticize and attack me or other editors when they also make errors. Focus on content and make any really necessary communications pleasant and AGF. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)17:32, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding:
"Other biographies (or other articles covered by BLP) where you use Harding or other sources, presumably without checking whether the sources name the article subject, includeKevin M. Downing,Rush Limbaugh,Donald Trump filmography. Feel free to correct me if the article subjects are mentioned in the sources.
Harding is okay as a source. MAGA may not like him, but he's good.
Just starting with the last one about a filmography. It's about Trump and does examine the links. The article also mentions that fact. What's the problem? --Valjean (talk) (PING me)21:24, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't understand your remark. Who or what is MAGA and how is that relevant here? Harding doesn't have a reputation of fact-checking and accuracy, and hence not okay as a source.
Nonsense, you're presenting your own cherrypicked opinion on a source's reliability absent a reliable source substantiating that. He's a well-credentialed journalist writing for a presumptively reliable outlet.Andre🚐21:47, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Politrukki, I'm referring to how MAGA does not like any criticism of Trump, including what you edited and Harding. I'm referring toyour edit that shows a misunderstanding of "synthesis" (edit summary: "removing improper synthesis"). I added links to back up single words that do not have to mention the film. Harding does mention the "links between Trump associates and Russian officials and the role ofRussian interference in the results of the 2016 election." That is also the topic of the documentary film. I have noticed you make this mistake in other places. You misunderstand "improper synthesis". --Valjean (talk) (PING me)22:07, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding Harding, I agree with Andre. He is a notable journalist andThe Guardian is a RS with a good reputation for fact checking. You may not like him, and neither does MAGA, but he's a good source you should not dismiss. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)22:10, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
??? What you mean by "MAGA" and where was this MAGA mentioned in the content I edited? In the filmography page you misplaced your citation footnotes: the two other sources were in the "Notes" column. None of the sources support the full claim that a) the documentary is investigating the links and b) that there were specifically"many suspicious" links. If none of the sources support the full claim, the claim is synthesis.
It isverifiable that the links between Trump associates and Russian officials have been described "tenuous", but you wouldn't use such source in the filmography article without confirming that the source isdirectly connected to the article, would you?Politrukki (talk)15:11, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the "Downing" article. The topic I edited there is the Mueller report, and investigating those links was a major part of Mueller's investigation. What's the problem? --Valjean (talk) (PING me)21:27, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The same answer as above regarding Harding and the filmography. You misunderstand "improper synthesis" and should self-revert the other places where you have deleted RS using that justification. Not every source has to mention the topic of the article. It must mention the words, phrase, or sentence the source is applied to, but not necessarily the article topic. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)22:18, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No. The connection between the source and the article subject must be obvious.
Here's a little thought experiment. Imagine that en-wiki doesn't have an article forKevin M. Downing and you start writing it from scratch. You only have the Harding sources, which you carefully summarise. What would the article say about Downing? Then imagine your article is nominated for deletion atWP:AFD. How would your article pass theWP:NOR test at AFD? (Ignore other P&Gs that would typically be relevant in deletion discussions.)Politrukki (talk)15:11, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No. The connection between the source and the article subjector a topic mentioned in the article must be obvious.
When creating an article about Downing from scratch, one would use sources that mention the topic of the article (Downing), but we are allowed,within limits, to also use sources that discuss the other topics in the biography. I don't know of many BLP articles that only mention the article subject without touching on other topics or using other words than the name of the subject. They nearly all do that, and we usually use wikilinks (to articles that do not mention Downing a single time) to serve the purpose of a source. We are also allowed to use inline sources for exactlythat word or phrase, sources that do not mention Downing. I added two words, with sources, and you removed them and have lodged this huge complaint here. This is weird. You don't understand OR. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)17:50, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To my knowledge, Harding neither mentions nor alludes to Limbaugh. It was more than two words; you also added"and spies" inthe edit that was partially reverted for "editorializing".Politrukki (talk)20:46, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The same answer as above regarding Harding and Downing. You misunderstand "improper synthesis" and should self-revert the other places where you have deleted RS using that justification. Not every source has to mention the topic of the article. It must mention the words, phrase, or sentence the source is applied to, but not necessarily the article topic. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)22:20, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding:
"InCarter Page youclaimed that"Page was a focus of the 2017 Special Counsel investigation into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officialsand spies"[emphasis added] synthesised the word"suspicious" from two sources (Harding, discredited through Russiagate investigation) even though the first didn't mention Page and second one didn't mention the special counsel investigation, which hadn't even started yet."
I'm not sure where to begin, if I even understand this. Are you denying that Page was a focus of the Mueller investigation? Are you denying that the "links" were "suspicious", and that they started long before the Mueller investigation? The sources were talking about the links and needn't mention the Mueller investigation as they were used to talk about the "links". --Valjean (talk) (PING me)21:39, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand why you don't understand you can't use sources outside their context (seeWP:STICKTOTHESOURCE). If the source you're using doesn't explicitly mention the article subject, you very likely can't use it in the article without conducting original research. Sometimes, the connection can be implicit, if the connection is obvious. For example if we're writing the article about theCrossfire Hurricane, it may be appropriate to use sources that mention the investigation without specifically referring to it by its name.
A word or term in an article does not create a hook you can hang statements that are not explicitly supported by any of the sources. For example, consider the following content fromCarter Page:
Would that be original research? Technically no, because a source that supports the new sentence fully does exist. But the edit would be inappropriate, because that would be using a source outside of its context. Now consider the same addition, but imagine that we add a 2013 source that says Horowitz was appointed by Obama. That would be improper synthesis, for obvious reasons.
If we go back to your edit, the placement of your added refs (in that revision refs #5 and #6) doesn't really matter. Because the statement"Page was a focus of the 2017 Special Counsel investigation into the many suspicious" isn't a sentence that would make sense without the latter part, we could pretend that you placed the footnotes at the end of the sentence. That makes it obvious to see that the full sentence is based on improper synthesis, because none of the sources supports all statements made in that sentence.Politrukki (talk)20:46, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the source you're using doesn't explicitly mention the article subject, you very likely can't use it in the article without conducting original research. Where does STICKTOTHESOURCE say that? Particularly the idea of explicitness.
Sometimes, the connection can be implicit, if the connection is obvious. Where does the guideline say that? What determines an obvious connection? Where in the guideline is this test outlined?Andre🚐21:51, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Politrukki, I think you're thinking ofcoatracking, notimproper synthesis. Adding the words "a Barack Obama appointee" (that's not a sentence) might be seen as objectionable in some circumstances. It could be perceived as an attempt to poison the well.
Your specific question is about adding"a Barack Obama appointee" without adding a source""Without adding a source" is the possible problem. Sometimes that would not be right. Editors could make that decision through discussion and consensus.
Otherwise, as I have just replied above, you seem to misunderstand "improper synthesis". A source does not always have to mention the article topic. The source is attached to a word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph, and it must support them, not necessarily the article topic.
You write: "In Carter Page you claimed that 'Page was a focus of the 2017 Special Counsel investigation into the many suspicious links between...'"
Do you think that statement is not true? Page was obviously part of the "focus"!
Our "links..." article is backed by many RS and treats those links as "suspicious". Do you think they lied about and hid those links because they were exchanging marmalade recipes?
Spies who are surveiling and secretly recording the "exchanging of marmalade recipes" would not see that as something so serious the surveiled communications would be reported to the FBI. (Kumquat marmalade is the best!)
No, the communications and links we are talking about were so suspicious that EIGHT foreign nations were concerned enough to contact the FBI. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)22:50, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
According to the policy,"To demonstrate that one is not adding original research, one must be able to cite reliable, published sources that aredirectly related to the topic of the article anddirectly support the material being presented." (footnote omitted)
Your interpretation ofNOR policy is novel and unfeasible. If your interpretation would be correct – continuing the above Barrack Obama example – mentioning "Barrack Obama" would create a new hook for "Barrack Obama's Ukraine policy", mentioning "Ukraine" would create a hook for "History of the Jews in Ukraine", mentioning "Jews" would create a hook for... Where would this end?Kevin Bacon? Should NPOV be assessed using sources that aredirectly connected to Carter Page (remember that this example was specifically about Carter Page) or using potentially millions of sources that one could connect to Carter Page based on your reasoning if we continue the chain long enough?Politrukki (talk)15:11, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to have ignored what I wrote above. I mentioned "within limits" and "coatracking". Coatracking is not allowed, so we don't allow long tangents that lead away from the subject of the article, but we do allow, all the time, the addition of clarifying content that does not mention the subject of the article, but that does illuminate some other topic mentioned in the article. So when does "coatracking" start? Is it my addition of two words to modify "link" ("many suspicious"), like I did, and which got you all riled up soyou deleted them? It wasn't OR or a SYNTH violation. Those two words were not used as a "coatrack" on which to build a lot of unrelated content. They were used "within limits". If someone started building on them to add a lot more, we'd likely delete it, but not go to their talk page and use the opportunity as a "hook"/excuse to justify attacking them for their imperfection. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)18:04, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
^Mueller Report, vol. I, p. 66: "The Office identified multiple contacts – 'links', in the words of the Appointment Order – between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government."
This is another problematic behaviour that I identified while fixing the wikilinks.
Youwere told on 18 May 2018 that there are zero reliable sources to support the"full authority" quote. I removed your misquotation from one or two articles several years ago – that's how I remembered it was a fake quote. But I've had to clean up more now.
You added the quote toNunes memo on13 April 2018. You have inserted a false claim that according to the dossier,"Sechin offered Trump a 19% stake in Rosneft" – the actual conspiracy theory is that Trump associates were offered abrokerage. However, I'm not sure whether this error can be fully attributed to you or the source, because if you readthe second BI article, you can see from the editor's note that either Bertrand or Bertrand's editor screwed this up.The content you added didn't even belong to the article in the first place, because you were conducting original research by using sources unrelated to the Nunes memo. Remember that all material aboutliving persons must strictly adhere toWP:NOR.
(Omitted two cases where someone copied content written by you from an unspecified article.)
1, 2, and 3 were addedbefore you informed about the fakeness of the quote, but if I were you, I would've rushed to fix the errors as soon as I was informed of them. It's been seven years since the errors were planted. I doubt whether you were ever going to fix them. I had to find the defective articles with a web search engine. Would it be too much to ask for you to go through your contribution history now and ensure no article includes the misquotation?Politrukki (talk)20:42, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please AGF. Instead of accusing, try asking. The quote is not fake at all. Here it is, in its context from Report 134.Here is a good copy. Here isthe original pdf:
2. In terms of the substance of their discussion, SECHIN’s associate said that the Rosneft President was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered PAGE/TRUMP’s associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft in return. PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.
5. SECHIN’s associated opined that although PAGE had not stated it explicitly to SECHIN, he had clearly implied that in terms of his comment on TRUMP’s intention to lift Russian sanctions if elected president, he was speaking with the Republican candidate’sfull authority.
I have stricken "full" and one added letter as those are mistakes made by whoever transcribed the dossier for The Moscow Project. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)23:11, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have looked at that old archived Talk:Steele dossier page and found my response at the time:
Okay, after some attempts to figure out what you meant, I think I get the point. (The part about "accept the bribe" threw me off.) Your point is the "full authority" part of our content, which is also from the dossier. After searching the sources we currently use and not finding those exact words in them, I'm wondering if that came from some of the previous sources that got axed when I went through and reduced the number of sources for each claim. Sometimes I'd have 6-8 refs after each allegation, and that was indeed a bit much! Maybe that's what happened? Whatever the case may be, the current sources do not justify including that part, so I'll remove it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. If I ever find the sources which do justify it, I'll return it. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 23:27, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
I would not have added a quote without a RS. Never!
You assumed bad faith and wrote: "I doubt whether you were ever going to fix them." Well,Iremoved it a long time ago.
I have a tendency to use too many sources, and the article was overloaded with many sources after each claim. After discussion about that problem, I went through the article and removed many sources. This is one instance where I must have inadvertently removed a source I should have kept. Whatever the case,those words are an accurate quote from the dossier, so AGF. Ask rather than accuse. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)23:24, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There was no accusation. I simply stated my opinion that had I done nothing, the errors may have remained forever. By "fake quote" and "misquotation" I was referring both to the fact that"full authority" was hallucinated by The Moscow Project and that the quote does not appear in the cited sources. Your diff doesn't prove that you fixed the errors I referred as 1, 2, and 3.
And it's not just one word that was problematic. If your paraphrase of the dossier would be"that Page confirmed, on Trump's 'authority'", that would still be inaccurate because Steele's claims are contradictory (which is a common theme in the dossier): first Steele claims Sechin's associate said this was"confirmed" and a moment later the claim has changed to"clearly implied" without explanation. This further illustrates why we generally avoid using primary sources.Politrukki (talk)21:06, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I just took another look at this and discovered thatThe Moscow Project's copy of the dossier betrayed me. It has otherwise been quite good. Because one cannot copy and paste from the original, I have used their copy. In this case, it added the word "full". When one readsthe original, "full" is not there:
Report 134 describes Carter Page asimplying that"he was speaking with the Republican candidate's authority."
So it's goodI deleted that after it was discussed. When a consensus forms against me, I bow to it. The debate should have been over the use of the word "full", not so much over "full authority". This is also the type of situation that shows why controversial situations often require longer exact quotes, not just single words in quote marks, and not paraphrases. My search would have been much easier if I had realized it was just one word that was problematic. My search terms "full authority" would never have found the single word "authority".
Imagine how one effing word can cause so much trouble(!), but I goofed. I'm very sorry about that. I now know I'll have to double-check that source. I was acting in good faith all along, but still made a mistake (not the first or last I will ever make...).
There is another factor that played into this error. I was, at that time, laboring under the mistaken belief that we were not allowed to directly cite the dossier, as it was a primary source, and could only cite how secondary sources paraphrased or cited it. That approach can lead to misquotes, as various secondary sources can make mistakes and add another link in the chain between the original and our readers, thus increasing the likelihood of introduced typos and errors.
Now I know that one can often cite primary sources directly (for maximum accuracy) if one is careful to use secondary sources for interpretation and commentary. When it comes to accurate quoting, IAR if necessary. Accuracy supersedes all else. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)23:11, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to read anunredacted copy of the dossier, it was released by the Republicans (possibly Graham and Grassley). The Republicans included the Cody Shearer memo for some odd reason. It contains rather shockingly detailed descriptions of other alleged sexualkompromat on the "Republican candidate" (starts on page FBI-HJC119-CH-000134) never mentioned by Steele. It harmonizes with what we know of Trump's confessed (bragged) behaviors described in the Hollywood Access tape, but goes into more detail. It quotes an FSB agent's retelling of alleged events.The Guardian briefly mentions it, but without the gross details. The Republicans in the HJC didn't bother to reformat it into normal prose, but it's still readable:"The Shearer memo cites an unnamed source within Russia’s FSB, the state security service. The Guardian cannot verify any of the claims."More here --Valjean (talk) (PING me)14:08, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please remove the links to documentcloud... and themoscowproject... unless you have clear proof that they have licensed the copyrighted work. PerLINKVIO we are not allowed to link to unauthorised copies without permission:"if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of copyright, do not link to that copy of the work without the permission of the copyright holder".
Based on your hint I have removed documentcloud... fromCarter Page (I know you didn't add the link) and themoscowproject... fromSteele dossier (I really hope you didn't add it) perCOPYVIOEL (which only involves articles).
From a copyright perspective, using the House report should be fine. Just remember that the fact that a government republishes copyrighted material produced by a third party (even one that works as a government contractor) doesn't cause the work to enter the public domain unless there was an agreement between the parties.Politrukki (talk)19:08, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's a long time since I considered that angle. It may not be necessary to link to a complete copy, only to individual allegations as they are often reproduced on secondary RS. That's allowed. Even Steele does not retain a copy of the dossier. He destroyed all copies, and everytime it has been sent to him in connection with legal proceedings, he then destroys it as soon as it is no longer necessary. He can always access it online. That way he cannot be accused of making some improper use of it and then be sued. A strange situation to be in! --Valjean (talk) (PING me)19:44, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good question. I suspect it was because it was about 5 years since I last thought of that issue and forgot that would be a bad idea. I'm glad you caught it. Article improvement like that is always welcome, so thanks. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)23:35, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest focusing more on quality, not quantity, of edits. That will never eliminate all errors (I'm speaking of myself too), but it would help. Forgetting things is human, butCOPYVIOEL is not something anyone made aware of it should ever forget. Do we need to blacklist the specific URLs or something? The problem is not limited to your editing, but maybe you could set yourself a monthly/yearly alarm?Politrukki (talk)15:25, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is an interesting discovery, and it reinforces my suspicion that both Page and Mifsud are Russian agents. Page always acts very suspicious with his constant denials that turn out to be false and his "memory issues". When forced under oath, he ends up confirming "nearly" all of the accusations against him. He's slippery.
While the connection between Mifsud and Papadopoulos is well-established,Carter Page belatedly admitted to greeting Mifsud:[1]
And after first denying that he met with __ Joseph Mifsud,__ the Kremlin-linked professor revealed to be a key contact of George Papadopoulos, Page equivocated. 'I—you know, there may have been a greeting,' he said. 'I have no recollection of ever interacting with him in any way, shape or form . . . I have no personal relationship with him.'
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This is getting creepy, as in stalking/harassment. This is from EIGHT years ago! Stick to current events and current content. You seem to have an unhealthy obsession with me. Stop focusing on me/editors and stay focused on content. It's also tiring and distracting having to check very old diffs and discussions. I can't remember all the context from way back then. I appreciate friendly advice, but this is weird. It doesn't come across as helpful AGF aid, but as attacks that assume bad faith. Don't criticize human failures so harshly. --Valjean (talk) (PING me)16:15, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page watcher)@Politrukki: Please comply with Valjean's request that you stop posting so many complaints on his talk page. If there are content issues, those can be raised on the talk pages of the corresponding articles, without the need to personalize the dispute. --Tryptofish (talk)20:44, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! I recently nominatedLea Salonga forFA, and since you are among the top editors of the page, I'd like to invite you tothe discussion at your nearest convenience. Have a great day!
Eight different countries discovered these suspicious and secretive contacts and reported them to the FBI.
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