User talk:Middayexpress/Archive 6

August 2009

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. Please don't forget to provide an edit summary for your edits. Thank you. --VirtualSteve ^{need admin support?} 19:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

• Noted your comment since reverted by yourself - I always try to be even handed and I'd be happy to assist you with leaving the above message for others - indeed I quite often do and especially when I see a number of potential fire-up points such as I am seeing at Somali related articles. I do this because I will inevitably get complaints about editors and often editors that leave accurate edit summaries are able to be immediately or easily identified as not being part of the problem. I hope you understand. Best wishes --VirtualSteve ^{need admin support?} 22:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit summaries are a best practice, not a hard and fast rule. And it's only difs of actual edits which show what edits an editor actually performed, not what he or she indicates or what another editor claims that he or she did or didn't do. But yes, I do understand what you mean. Middayexpress (talk) 22:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your support. What you say above is true except where the continued failure to provide edit summaries (particularly in contentious articles) causes disruption to the project. Thanks again.--VirtualSteve ^{need admin support?} 22:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

There are contentious articles, there are banal edits on contentious articles, and then there are contentious edits on contentious articles. But only actual difs show which is which. The best practice of writing up edit summaries in theory helps present what may or may not be an encapsulation of the edits which have transpired; nothing more, nothing less. And on the contentious articles that I have actually edited, I already have provided edit summaries on all major changes. Middayexpress (talk) 22:44, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Noted.--VirtualSteve ^{need admin support?} 22:53, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Getting Some Somali Input on Somalian Articles

Do you think it would be too drastic or inappropriate of a step to put something on some Somali pages to try to get Somali editors to get into the process? There are so many of these IP address edits where I just wish the person who made the edit had a user page. --Nogburt (talk) 06:34, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Somalis in the Netherlands

Perhaps you can explain how it is synthesis to put in entries from two years in a census? cab (talk) 17:20, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

If only that were all there was to it. The fact remains, however, that the Somalis in the Netherlands article clearly states that 20,000 Somalis exited the Netherlands between 2000 to 2005. This is directly and explicitly sourced to this news article. You then added a statement from a primary source to the effect that "Dutch government statistics showing a drop in the total Somali population of the Netherlands from 28,780 to 21,733 residents", which directly undermines this claim. This is what is meant by synthesis i.e. using a source to advance arguments that the source itself does not make:

"Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to reach conclusion C. This would be a synthesis of published material that advances a new position, and that constitutes original research.[7] "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument in relation to the topic of the article."

Wikipedia also makes it clear that it does not allow original analyses of primary sources, which the statement to the effect that "Dutch government statistics showing a drop in the total Somali population of the Netherlands from 28,780 to 21,733 residents" that was sourced to this Dutch statistics table definitely is:

"Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."

-- Middayexpress (talk) 17:38, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Somalis in the United Kingdom

Can you perhaps tell me why you deleted the large section of the somali community in the UK, I edited earlier on. This was not necessary. You could have edit but instead removed the whole section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcassmith (talk • contribs) 14:15, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The "section" you added wasn't a section at all but a hodge-podge replacement of non-POV, neutral text and sourced facts & figures with POV, fabricated figures, original research, and WP:UNDUE on Somali asylum-seeking. Here are but a few of the more glaring examples of what I'm talking about:

• You added the Dutch and Swedish languages as the languages primarily spoken by Somalis in the UK, which is preposterous & patently false. There are up to 200,000 Somalis in the UK by some estimates, and the recent secondary migration of Somalis from Scandinavia and the Netherlands (many of whom were newcomers to those countries to begin with and who don't even really speak those regions' respective languages to boot) don't represent a fraction of that. Certainly not enough to warrant marking them as languages primarily spoken by the UK's Somali community at large.
• You added a statement that "most Somali refugees eventually settled in former colonial countries like Britain, where subsequent migration occurred periodically from the late 1980’s to the present depending on the political situation in Somalia", which you then attributed to a statistics website which says nothing of the sort. Besides the fact that the former Imperial power Italy has but a few thousand Somali immigrants (many of whom were already in the country prior to the civil war) and that the cited source does not support your claims, Britain was not a "colonial" country to most Somalis but only to those from the former British Somaliland protectorate in what is now northwestern Somalia -- an area the Somali civil war never really hit. And even then, British Somaliland was never a colony, but a protectorate.
• You replaced a factual, neutral and sourced statement that:

"The United Kingdom, with 43,532 Somali-born residents in 2001,[1] is home to the largest Somali community in Europe. Recent unofficial estimates suggest that between 95,000 and 250,000 Somalis may now live in the UK,[3][4] with Somali community organisations putting the figure at 90,000 residents.[5]"

with the following bit of original research:

"figures show that Somalia consistently remained in the top ten asylum applicant producing countries in the UK. Despite this, the 2001 Census only gave 43,532 persons as being born in Somalia. A statistic which is under-enumerated. The under-estimation of Somalis in the UK can be attributed to the failure to classify Somalis as a distinct group of migrants; instead Somalis are subsumed within the closest monitoring category – Black African."

• You have indicated that "Almost all Somali asylum-seekers to arrive in the UK prior to 1998 were granted refugee status or indefinite leave to remain (ILTR), since then the proportion of refused permission to remain has increased considerably and stood at 72% of initial decisions in 2004", which you then attributed to a source titled Refugee Children in the UK by Rutter (2006) when that source does not even mention so-called Indefinite Leave to Remain/ILTR, nevermind the figures cited. That too is original research.
• You have indicated that:

"The Home Office has since decided that those applying for asylum application must confirm proof that they are being persecuted by a state authority. The House of Lords set a precedent in R. v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Adan in 1998 and held that in order for an asylum applicant to be successful, he or she must show to face a risk ‘over and above’ those inherent in a civil war. In recent years the number of Somalis in the UK has dramatically increased, due largely to the arrival of secondary refugee migrants from other European countries, most of whom already gained refugee status or citizenship in their respective countries. This group of migrants have formed a significant number of Somalis entering the UK since 2000 and have settled in cities with already established Somali populations such as London, Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield".

which you then attributed to a paper titled Next Stop Britain: The Influence of Transnational Networks on the Secondary Movement of Danish Somalis when that source does not once mention the House of Lords or R. v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Adan let alone tie it to the Somali expatriate community in the UK. The rest of the statement was just a pointless & POV recapitulation of what was already mentioned in the article on secondary migrations from other areas in Europe, only this time without even bothering to mention which areas of Europe (the Netherlands notwithstanding) those Somalis migrated from to begin with.

In short, your edits as a whole completely ruined the article. You literally transformed what was originally a neutral article on the Somali diaspora into a POV, factually misrepresented, OR spam-fest on asylum-seeking & refugee claims. This sort of soapboxing and attempts to use Wikipedia as a platform to air your personal views or to shape public opinion is prohibited. Indeed, I noticed you even attempted to create an article exclusively on Somali asylum-seekers to further push your already demonstrated POV but an administrator promptly deleted that article, indicating in the process that the "article that has no meaningful, substantive content". And that's only after another Wiki-user first warned you on your talk page with regard to that same article that Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Lastly, I noticed that you've also availed yourself of IPs to perform your edits, and have alternated between using them & your current account. You should know that Wikipedia has rules against the use of multiple accounts. This is your first time using this account (if not others, given your IP usage) in three years, but that too is still no excuse for this unacceptable behavior. Middayexpress (talk) 17:09, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Yibir

Midday, this edit summary is crap. Nothing is cited as fact, and your word choice, "reference to work of fiction," is misleading and incorrect. There is no reference to a work of fiction; there is the statement that this work of fiction exists. That no other group has it is no reason to leave it out. You could have been nice and found another place for it, realizing it is somewhat remarkable that a novel takes such a small clan as its subject material. I'm not going to restore it--I got one more edit to make on this article and then I'm done, and you can have it all to yourself. Drmies (talk) 21:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm afraid there very much is a reference to a work of fiction, and it's ironically contained in that same link you posted above:

"The novel The Yibir of Las Burgabo, by Somali writer Mahmood Gaildon, is the fictional account of a Yibir family in modern Somalia, and tells the story of a young brother and sister who lose their father at an early age and try to come to terms with their poverty and their belonging to "the most ostracized and despised group in Somalia.""

The situation is as I have indicated in my edit summary ("rmv reference to work of fiction on the Yibir. No other ethnic group has works of fiction cited on its ethnic group page as if they are fact. Also not a reliable source."). That is, that the novel The Yibir of Las Burgabo both cited & quoted from above is a work of fiction, and no work of fiction should be used to make value judgements pertaining to real, actual ethnic groups as that paragraph above does. Wikipedia's WP:RS makes it clear what is and isn't a reliable source in such circumstances, and that novel obviously is not. Middayexpress (talk) 21:46, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

You failed to note the words "the story of". Fiction. The source I quoted was a reliable source for the novel. (The novel, BTW, was never quoted, contrary to your claim--please read carefully.) Claiming that the paragraph makes a value judgment about an ethnic group is confusing fact and fiction. Claiming that I would cite a summary of a novel to make such a statement is ridiculous. Drmies (talk) 01:51, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so. You quoted directly from the back cover of a work of fiction titled The Yibir of Las Burgabo. Why bother denying it when a simple link proves otherwise? It sure doesn't change the fact that describing the Yibir as "the most ostracized and despised group in Somalia" is a value judgement (and a demonstrably false one at that), emanating from the back cover of a work of fiction. And works of fiction still are obviously not reliable sources when it comes to real, actual ethnic groups such as the Yibir. Middayexpress (talk) 02:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

It's like I'm talking to a brick wall. The paragraph was talking about the book. Yes, I quoted from the back cover--about the book. Whether they are or are not the most ostracized is beside the point: that's what the book says, and the paragraph said that that's what the book said. And even if you thought the phrasing wasn't right, you could have edited it rather than cut it. But you just keep on repeating the same point, that the paragraph was talking about the 'real' clan, even though that only proves that you blindly refuse to see the difference between fact and fiction. It's kind of like thinking that Johnny Cash was incarcerated in San Quentin cause he sang about it. Drmies (talk) 02:49, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Brick wall or not, it doesn't change the fact that a work of fiction is no place to fish for such potentially inflammatory value judgements with regard to actual ethnic groups. Bottom line, a work of fiction is not a reliable source. And worse, exceptional statements require exceptional sources, not novels (back cover or not). Middayexpress (talk) 02:57, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Brick wall, obviously. Again you confuse a book with reality. I'm glad I won't be working with you anymore, and I wish you had just not bothered with this article, which was a poor and underreferenced stub when I started on it. (You're welcome, by the way.) Edits are fine, help is great, and you have brought some valuable things to the article, since you obviously have expertise here--but your edit summaries went from crabby to downright dismissive and bitchy, and this whole discussion, it's going nowhere. Drmies (talk) 03:13, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

lol You describe my edits as "crappy", tell me that talking to me is "like talking to a brick wall", repeat again that it is like talking to a "brick wall, obviously", characterize my edit summaries as "bitchy" yet still complain about my being "crabby"??? Too good! I've had to do more cleanup today than in quite some time. There were so many factual errors, misattributed statements, and just plain falsehoods (some of which are still in the article) that a "thank you" would be completely unwarranted. However, if there's one thing I've learned about editing on Wikipedia it's that when faced with actual arguments that are difficult to defend, editors more often than not resort to ad hominem (as just quoted). It's understandable I suppose, but still a violation of WP:CIV. Middayexpress (talk) 03:20, 5 September 2009 (UTC)