User:Joaquin Murietta GS

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[edit] The World According to User:Geo Swan

[edit] A vote on a book he didn't read

  • keep Disclaimer: I wrote the text that another wikipedian has described as POV, and an inaccurate summary.
  • I think the book is notable, even if it didn't make any best-seller lists.
  • I think we need to recognize that there is a difference between an article that is POV, and an article that reports on a book, whose contents are POV. Articles on books that are POV are not necessarily POV themselves. If the article is NPOV it clearly belongs on the wikipedia.
  • If a book is notable enough to belong on the wikipedia, but the contents are agreed to be POV, then surely the next step is to rewrite it, or to add a {npov} tag?
  • The person who nominated this for deletion put a note in the talk page that the article was an "inaccurate summary" of the book. I haven't read the book. But I have read several articles about it. I believe the brief summary in the article accurately reflects what the articles and reviews of the book said the book contained. Here are some reviews from across the political spectrum.
  • Wikipedians can differ on how much credibility they allow Dr Frank. But the book was widely reviewed and is regularly quoted and cited. And that, IMO, makes it worthy of mention in the wikipedia.
  • As to whether the information about the book should be merged with the George W. Bush article... I think the wikipedia is better served with the information about this book staying in an article of its own. I gather that the GWB article is beset by unending edit wars. IMO the current contents are NPOV. And it will be easier to keep them NPOV if it is a standalone article. Or restore it to NPOV, if you disagree about it being NPOV now.
  • IMO standalone ancillary articles make the wikipedia easier to use than huge, monolithic, omnibus articles. -- Geo Swan 21:12, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] His answer to my question

[edit] Your review of the book you didn't read Bush on the Couch

How can you possibly justify writing and then editing a book review for Bush on the Couch when you never read the book? Here is your admission I haven't read the book. But I have read several articles about it. I believe the brief summary in the article accurately reflects what the articles and reviews of the book said the book contained. Here are some reviews from across the political spectrum Please explain this to those of us who actually read books. Joaquin Murietta 15:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I suggest you calm down, and re-read the passage you just quoted. Did I say I was writing or editing a book review? Um, no, I did not. So, do I have to justify writing a book review on a book I didn't read? No I do not.
Read it again. "I believe the brief summary in the article accurately reflects what the articles and reviews of the book said it contained." That is the standard you should hold me to. Does my brief summary say what reviewers said the book contained? I don't think there is any real question that it does.
Now there is a slim possibility that the review of the conservative Weekly Standard, the review of the liberal Salon, and of the left wing Political affairs are all misrepresenting what Frank's book really says. Even so, my summary of their common elements is a fair summary. So, even if those reviews from across the political spectrum were all mistaken, or in cahoots, my brief summary would still be a fair summary of the reviews.
The book is important, and would merit an article solely because people like you and I, who haven't read it, have opinions about it.
You called the brief summary I wrote "inaccurate". I have asked you several times what you base your opinion of its accuracy on. I am going to assume your reluctance to reply is based on you deciding it was inaccurate without first taking any steps to learn its contents. Well, that would be wrong, much more serious than what you are suggesting I did.
Alternatively, maybe you allowed yourself to base your judgement of the accuracy of the article summarizing the book on your judgement of the accuracy of the views expressed in the book? Well, that would be wrong, a serious mistake as well.
If you were a heavy-duty christian we wouldn't allow you to delete all books on satanism or wicca. Or vice versa. If you were heavy duty in favour of legal abortion we wouldn't allow you to eliminate all articles that contained descriptions of arguments against legal abortion. Or vice versa. The wikipedia shouldn't allow people to eliminate articles that express views simply because they disagree with them. -- Geo Swan 15:56, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] About a copyright violation filed on October 11th... the "List of Guantanamo Bay detainees" (Geo Swan's First Post on Splash's Page

A {copy-vio} was initiated on October 11th on a page I had done a lot of work on -- the List of Guantanamo Bay detainees. I see you erased it from Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2005 October 11 recently.

This is the first {copy-vio} I have been involved in. I have a few questions:

  1. Is the {copy-vio} now over? Have you adjudicated that the there was no actual copyright violation involved?
  2. I've been on the wikipedia for just over a year. And I had not been involved in any {copy-vio} or {afd} discussions, until this last month. In addition to initiating this {copy-vio}, which it seemed to me gave the strong appearance of being initiated in a act of bad faith, User:Joaquin Murietta, subsequently initiated over half a dozen {afd}s, several of which also gave the strong appearance of bad faith. The way they are following around my edits, and doing arbitrary reversals of my contributions, slapping tags on them, and making insulting comments on them, makes me feel almost as if I am being stalked. It is extremely unpleasant. I am hoping that if I have to initiate a formal complaint against their treatment of me that I will have the option to take clips from the edit history of their contribtions to "Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2005 October 11". So, do the pages where the {copy-vio}s are reported and discussed get deleted, when the last {copy-vio} from that date is dealt with? Or are they preserved, as a record?
  3. Was my feeling that the {copy-vio}, and my perception that JM was unwillingness to engage in an honest, meaningful, civil discussion of the issues, sufficient reason to initiate a formal complaint?
  4. If a contributor makes too many abuses of wiki policies and procedures, sanctions, like temporary blocking, are imposed, aren't they?


I realize that, since there is a backlog in processing the {copy-vio}s, this feedback may not be coming at the most convenient time, but I would like to give feedback:

  1. I took several long looks at the backlogged list of suspected articles. It is very rare for anyone to comment on the cases.
  2. The person who wrote the material suspected of being a copyright violation is entitled to respond?
  3. If they are entitled to respond, the correct place to respond is right after where the suspicion was logged?
  4. As someone who went through this for the first time I can offer an explanation. The {copy-vio} tag doesn't actually point to a location for interested parties to put their comments. I felt sorry for some of the other people who had {copy-vio}s filed against them. I could see that some of them had made attempts to explain that they were actually authorized to put up that text. They just couldn't find where to do it.


Thanks -- Geo Swan 21:17, 30 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Thanks for your prompt reply (Geo Swan's Second Post on Splash's Page)

Thanks for your reply.

I have tried to stop short of an accusation, and phrase my concern as "giving a strong appearance of bad faith". But the amount of trust I had in their good faith long since asymptotically approached zero.

I have told them that I will give a civil, serious answer, if they can manage to ask a civil, serious question. They have asked a few questions that they phrased civilly. But my civil answers seem to be like a red flag to a bull for them.

You volunteered to speak to them? Well, they said they were going wait for an administrator to make the judgement as to whether it was a copyright violation. This was their justification for refusing to discuss the issue. They repeated it after I pointed out that they were misinterpreting Feith v. Rural. And they repeated it a third time when half a dozen of the the people who had voted to keep the article during its {afd} told him they too thought Feith v. Rural was conclusive. I believe in acknowledging when I make a mistake, and possibly apologizing too. But I don't believe they do.

But, since they said they were going to wait for an administrator to make the decision, I think it would be a good idea if you told them it was over.

Over and above that, well the history of our interaction has so many incidents sorting it all out would take a long time. I expect the summary I would need to make if I file a complaint could take all day. I won't expect you to follow it all. I should make that summary.

Anyhow, thanks for your prompt reply... -- Geo Swan 23:08, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Excerpts from AfD on List of high value detainees

In anticipation of the User:Geo Swan's usual and customary attacks on me, let me point out my good faith my edit tonight of his other new article, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan. Please compare the before and after before you misjudge me. Joaquin Murietta 00:51, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • No overlap -- Civilian intelligence officials have retained the couple of dozen detainees who have the most intelligence value. They are not held at Guantanamo Bay. So there is no overlap between the List of Guantanamo Bay detainees, and a list of those with an intelligence value so great they are not held by the military, are not held in Guantanamo Bay.
  • Dick Cheney made the distinction. On October 20, 2005, VPOTUS Dick Cheney tried to get John McCain to change his proposal to restrict American interrogators to only those interrogation techniques authorized the official Army interrogation manual. Cheney wanted McCain's proposal to only apply to those detainees in military custody, and not to the smaller group of detainees with real intelligence value, who were in the custody of civilian intelligence agencies. I contend that circumstances of arrest, detention, interrogations of the detainees in civilian custody, and the allegations against them, merits inclusion in the wikipedia. And I contend that an article devoted to those held in Guantanamo Bay is an innapropriate place for that inclusion. None of these guys is held in Guantanamo Bay. I wasn't completely happy with the name I picked when I started this article. And the confusion expressed suggests the article should have a different name. But it certainly merits inclusion. -- Geo Swan 17:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


  • As above. The List of Guantanamo Bay detainees -- all of whom are in military custody -- does not cover detainees who are not held in Guantanamo Bay, and who are held by civilian intelligence agencies.
  • As above, the wikipedia needs this article, but it needs a different title.
  • Rumsfeld, and other senior officials, have claimed that the interrogations at Guantanamo Bay have produced "invaluable intelligence". There is a long tradition in war-fighting to use disinformation. I think it was Winston Churchill who said that, in wartime, "the truth must be guarded by a bodyguard of lies". I think accepting the "invaluable intelligence", and "worst of the worst" claims, at face value, is POV. I think balanced, neutral coverage of the detainee issues requires having articles also present verifiable information that allows readers to test the Bush administrations claims. If the Guantanamo Bay facility really included the worst of the worst it would contain Abu Zubaydah, al-Libi, and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.
  • The USA has, in custody, some guys who are believed to be senior members of al Qaeda, guys who had foreknowledge of, or helped plan, the attacks of 9-11. And the USA has, in custody, some guys who are believed to have been the directors of terrorist training camps. These are the guys who are really "the worst of the worst", the ones with real "intelligence value". US civilian intelligence agencies have held on to them. They are not held in Guantanamo Bay. And the Bush administration is fighting very strongly to continue to hold them in secret interrogatin centres and to continue to interrogate them using more extreme interrogation techniques. -- Geo Swan 17:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


  • It was a poor choice of title. My mistake. How would you feel about Terror suspects held by US inteligence agencies or detainees held by US intelligence agencies in the "global war on terror". It would be more convenient to use something like Terror suspects held by the CIA. But we don't know that they are held by the CIA. Afghanistan is one of the world's most prolific opium growing areas. So the DEA may be working there. There is a slim possibility that the CIA delegated the detention of some suspects to the DEA or other more junior agencies.
  • I can't tell if you think that the article, as it stands, is too sympathetic to the detainees, or too sympathetic to the stands taken by the Bush administration. Would you care to clarify that for me?
  • Do you have any concrete suggestions, beyond a change of title, as to what the article needs to seem NPOV to you? I made some changes to take your comments into account. In particular I changed many of the uses of the term "high value detainees" to "suspects held by US Civilian Intelligence agencies".
  • You made a guess at the "kind of article am I trying to create here". Well, you don't have to guess. I will tell you. I believe that a NPOV requires more than merely echoing the positions of the Bush administration. I believe that the presentation of pertinent, verifiable information, that does not use inflammatory language, is not POV. Did I use noninflammatory language? I thought so. But if you disagree, I'd appreciate you pointing me to specific passages where my efforts fell short.
  • A limited number of wikipedia contributors seem to have the view that merely trying to write about certain topics is biased, and POV. I disagree. Some topics may be harder to address in an NPOV way. But I am willing to make the effort. And I am going to count on others who can assume good will, to help me out with that.


  • As above, the detainees who are not in military custody, are not detained in Cuba, who were retained by civilian intelligence agencies, because they were senior al Qaeda who had real knowledge of participation in the planning of the attacks on 9-11 merit separate coverage from the detainees who are in military custody. The possibility exists that the interrogation techniques used on those in the List of Guantanamo Bay detainees will be scaled back to just those authorized in the Army's field manual on interrogation, while those in civilian custody remain interrogated by more extreme techniques, like "waterboarding" and mock executions. That alone, IMO, merits a separate article. -- Geo Swan 17:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep in current form, the article is unrecognisable from the original and now has a genuine purpose. I note the author(s) have included the comment "needs a name change" - I quite agree. As it stands this is a completely different article with an apparently different subject. - Just zis Guy, you know? 17:00, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Would you care to explain why this article is "inherently POV"? -- Geo Swan 17:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • If you check the criteria for deletion in Wikipedia:Deletion policies you will see that a perceived POV problem is not grounds for deletion. -- Geo Swan 14:52, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, unless some appropriate source can be cited for the origin of the term "high value detainees". TheMadBaron 16:53, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • As above, the wikipedia needs this article, but undera a better name. A google search on the term "high value detainee" turns up over 600 links. -- Geo Swan 17:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • keep, but rename. Disclaimer, I started this article.
  • As above, in addition to the detainees with little intelligence value held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo US Civilian intelligence officials maintain small, covert, interrogation centres where they have been holding and interrogating the most senior al Qaeda captives, those who may have helped plan the 9-11 attacks.
  • The article needs to be renamed. The original name is confusing. I am not sure what name might be better. How about List of al Qaeda captives in CIA custody?
  • Both US officials, and media correspondents have used the term "high value detainee". But, since I started the article, with that name, I realized that US officials did not restrict that term to the most senior al Qaeda, they also used it for the most senior members of Saddam's regime. All of the other 51 people on those famous playing cards are "high value detainees". My mistake. The article definitely needs a better name. -- Geo Swan 17:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • If you check the criteria for deletion in Wikipedia:Deletion policies you will see that a perceived POV problem is not grounds for deletion. -- Geo Swan 14:52, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • If you check, "article cannot be made NPOV" (ie. inherently POV) is grounds for deletion. --Carnildo 18:41, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • "Wholly inappropriate pages in the project (Wikipedia:), Help:, MediaWiki:, Portal:, and various talk namespaces, where discussion, renaming, merging, or simple editing cannot resolve the problem."
Surely, before applying the extreme measure of deletion, you, or someone who agrees with you, should have made a sincere, good faith effort to try discussion, renaming, merging or simple editing. I have been doing my share, good faith edits to address those who have concerns. Yes, we are discussing the article, now. But no one tried discussion before filing an {afd}. That does not conform the to deletion procedures. I contend that what the passage I quoted from the policy means is that an {afd} is the last resort to be tried, once good faith attempts at discussion, etc., failed. -- Geo Swan 21:16, 28 October 2005 (UTC)


  • Comment re Definitions of High Value Detainee The argument is that the U.S. govt particularly mistreats those detainees that it defines as high value. The problem with the list is that the U.S govt has never disclosed the names. A U Mich site defines the phrase -- High Value Detainee A detainee who, due to his or her senior position in the military, security, scientific/technical, or government structures of Saddam Husayn's [sic] Regime, may have knowledge or insights of relevance to ISG's mission. [www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/pdf/duelfer3_e.pdf 1]. If this is the correct definition, then many of the names on the list are incorrect. However, we have no way of confirming this until the US Govt releases the names. Eventually that will happen, but at this stage, any list we put up would be based on speculation. An OpEd piece could properly speculate on the identities, but is it encyclopedic? Joaquin Murietta 07:09, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I made a poor choice of names when I started the article. I already said this, several times. The article needs to be renamed. My current favourite alternative name is Terror suspects in CIA custody.
  • The US government has admitted using extended interrogation techniques on the detainees in CIA custody, including "waterboarding" -- an interrogation technique where you immerse a detainee in water, to the point they think they are about to drown -- and mock executions. Most people would regard this as mistreatment.
  • In answer to your question: As I understand wiki policy, the authors of wikipedia articles are not supposed to include their own speculation in the contributions they make. But quoting articles, and op-eds, that speculate, is completely legit, as long as they are properly cited, so the reader can tell the cited material is a speculation.
  • As to whether the US government has acknowledged the detention of any of the senior al Qaeda that are in the custody of Intelligence angencies, not the military. You asserted that the US government has not. You are simply mistaken there.
  • Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi is said to have been the first senior al Qaeda operative to have been captured. He is said to have been the first senior al Qaeda to have been the subject of more extreme interrogation techniques. Under interrogation he made admissions that were regarded as extremely important. The news from his interrogation were regarded as so important that a cabinet level decision was made to sacrifice the keeping his information under wraps. Al-Libi was mentioned, by name, in the famous speech Powell gave to the UN, where he cited evidence that bolstered the case that there was a tie between al Qaeda and Saddam's regime, and that Saddam did have a dangerous arsenal of WMD.
After the invasion, and after the American failure to find any WMD al-Libi was re-interviewed about the WMD. He acknowledged that the admissions he made were untrue.
That was a clear failure on someone's part. Whether al-Libi was clever enough, and determined enough, to outsmart his interrogators, and knowingly feed them poisoned information, or whether incompetent interrogators unconsciously lead al-Libi to confirm their preconceptions is not at issue here.
What is at issue is whether US government officials have openly acknowledged holding some of the detainees who were initially held in covert detention centres. The answer is a clear and unequivocal "yes" in al-Libi's case, and in the case of several others on the list, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh.
  • You seem to be implying here, and elsewhere, that the wikipedia cannot report any speculation on facts or arguments that could be interpreted as reflecting poorly on US policies. You have consistently called that kind of material POV, or "obviously POV". That is far to high a standard. The standard you suggest here, that the wikipedia cannot report on the status of these detainees until you recognize that an official US government source has acknowledged the the nature and location of their detention and interrogation is too high. There are secrets, from World War 2, that remain classified over sixty years later. But no one would argue that the wikipedia shouldn't report speculation about those secrets. I am old enough to remember a time before the British wartime decryption efforts had lead to the worlds first digital computers. If the wikipedia had been around then, surely you would agree that reporting the knowledgeable speculation of experts, and former insiders, was completely legitimate?
  • I am old enough to remember the unfolding of the US Watergate scandal, during the Nixon Presidency. By the standard you seem to be suggesting, the wikipedia would not have been able to report on Woodward and Bernstein stories -- because they were reporting material that relected poorly on a sitting President that had not been confirmed by an official US government official. By this standard you would have restricted the wikipedia from reporting on expert's speculation as to the identity of the source Woodward and Bernstein identified as "deep throat". No, the wikipedia is not the place for crusading investigative journalists. But reporting on the speculation of investigative journalists, in a balanced way, is completely within what the wikipedia is.
  • I know you know, as other people have pointed it out to you, in some of the previous {afd}s you recently initiated on articles I started, that the wikipolicy on deleting articles clearly says a perceived POV problem is not grounds for deletion.
  • Do you remember the course of the US invasion of Iraq. Progress was relatively quick. It took about a month from when the first elements crossed the border, to the final occupation of the government complex in downtown Baghdad. During that month the Iraqi Minister of Information kept giving these ridiculous press conferences, where he reported that the Iraqi forces were winning, were on the brink of chewing up the invaders, and expelling them. He was a laughing stock. Saddam restricted him from reporting or confirming anything that reflected poorly on Saddam's regime. If you succeeded, and were able to suppress reports all facts or expert's speculation, that could be interpreted as reflecting poorly on the USA, from inclusion in the wikipedia, you would turn it into the same kind of laughing stock as Saddam's Ministry of Information.
  • The proper role of the wikipedia is not to serve as a US hagiography. The wikipedia is not a US project. It is an international project. Even if I were an American I would argue against the suppression of verifiable information just because it could be seen as reflecting poorly on US policies. -- Geo Swan 14:52, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AfD Discussion

  • List of Guantanamo Bay detainees[1] Note: I reverted the section that seems to track the Washington Post website and left the rest. Joaquin Murietta 14:07, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Also please see discussion with author at my talk page at Talk Joaquin Murietta 14:24, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
    • and also please see a spirited discussion at the article's discussion page [2] Joaquin Murietta 18:49, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service summarizes a 1991 US Supreme Court ruling, that concerned whether the names in a phone book could be copyright. The Supreme Court ruled that a phone book, or by extension, any list of "facts", could not be copyright. The amount of effort put into compiling a list of facts is not what makes it eligible for copyright. They ruled that a list could be copyright, if judgement or creativity was put into its assembly, or presentation. A creative order of presentation could make a list eligible for copyright. But trivially obvious orders, like alphabetic order, don't meet that standard. So, I believe that the list compiled by the Washington Post is not eligible for copyright, and consulting it in composing our list can not be a copyright violation. -- Geo Swan 12:03, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
        • Under Geo Swan's argument, I guess Wikipedia could post the entire New York city phone book. But the Washington Post article is not a phone book. Except for a few dozen names, the hundreds of names in the List of Guantanamo Bay detainees is lifted from the table in the Washington Post article. That's why Feist actually supports the Washington Post's copyright.
          In Feist , the United States Supreme Court held

          This case concerns the interaction of two well-established propositions. The first is that facts are not copyrightable; the other, that compilations of facts generally are...There is an undeniable tension between these two propositions. Many compilations consist of nothing but raw data - i.e., wholly factual information not accompanied by any original written expression. On what basis may one claim a copyright in such a work? Common sense tells us that 100 uncopyrightable facts do not magically change their status when gathered together in one place. Yet copyright law seems to contemplate that compilations that consist exclusively of facts are potentially within its scope...Factual compilations, on the other hand, may possess the requisite originality. The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws...thus, even a directory that contains absolutely no protectible written expression, only facts, meets the constitutional minimum for copyright protection if it features an original selection or arrangement.[3]

          Here, the table in the List of Guantanamo Bay detainees is essentially identical to the table in the Washington Post Article. The Washington Post did not merely list phone subscribers, they did original research to come up with their opinion as to who was detained and what their country of origin was. Under Feist, the Washington post table does have the requisite originality and therefore it is protected.
          Since the List of Guantanamo Bay detainees table is lifted from the Washington Post table, why not rewrite the section to avoid this copyright problem? Moreover, the Washington Post table will be continually edited and updated. It makes more sense to link to it rather than copy it. Joaquin Murietta 15:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  • JM's entry surprises me. I thought citing Feist v Rural was definitive enough that JM might quietly have acknowledged they were in error, or just left without coming back. Instead JM misrepresented Feist v. Rural, just as they misrepresented my statements, and, I believe, misrepresented their motives
  • Feist v Rural means exactly the opposite of what JM claims. Alphabetically ordered lists of facts aren't eligible for copyright.
  • JM then tries to suggest the Washington Post list merits copyright protection because of the effort they put into compiling it. This is a second misrepresentation of Feist v Rural. It might be counter-intuitive, but Feist v Rural clearly states that it is not effort that earns a creation copyright protection, it is creativity. The Washington Post's effort, while admirable, is irrelevant to any question of whether the wikipedia list violates a Washington Post copyright.
  • JM talks about the Washington Post staff's commendable judgement and creativity in composing their list of sources. The Washington Post's list of detainees by name has a numbered clickable hyperlink next to each name, that takes the reader to the spot in the list of sources for the article where they found that detainee described. I didn't use that list. I don't even cite that list. Its copyright status is also irrelevant to the discussion of JM's copy-vio allegation.
  • JM keeps repeating that I "lifted" the Washington Post link. Irrelevant, because their list is not eligible for copyright protection. It is also untrue, and untrue that the lists are "essentially identical".
  • In their final two sentences JM talks about what is wrong with the design of the article. Irrelevant to a discussion of whether it is a copyright violation. But, illustrative, I suspect, of a hidden motive behind invoking the copyright violation procedure on this article. They voted to delete this article in a recent {AfD}. The consensus was overwhelmingly to keep the article in its current form. I strongly suspect they are trying to game the system, and try to get an article deleted for a spurious copyright violation, when the side they favoured lost the {AfD}.
  • Up until today all my communication with JM was very civil. But their misrepresentations today finally exhausted my patience. -- Geo Swan 18:57, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Whilst Geo Swans accusations of 'gaming' are not helpful, a plain, vanilla list of names is most certainly not a copyright violation. Else someone could concievably cite every sports team roster, Academy Awards winners list, Olympic medal winners, and so on, as a copyright violation. This is silly. The only associated information with the list of names is the country of origin. Such a basic fact - the country a person comes from - is not sufficient information to render the list as having 'requisite originality' under the above court ruling. This is a bad faith nomination from a user, and really should be removed from the copy vio procedure. Proto t 
This is a response to the posting on my talk page today and User:Geo Swan mass e-mailing and posting to his supporters [4] on this issue. I made the tag in good faith. Joaquin Murietta 15:10, 19 October 2005 (UTC) Also I did not know there was a copyvio backlog. I feel that the table created by the Washington Post is original and has the minimal originality under Feist to merit protection. GeoSwan totally copied the Wash Post table of hundreds of names, then added a few names of his own. I have repeatedly suggested that GeoSwan edit his table or present the names in another format to avoid the copyvio problems, but he has refused.
By the way, I would like to add that it is not helpful to be continually accused by Geo Swan and his buddies of being a. a Mexican Bandit, b. a right wing Cuban, c. a Troll, d. one who conspires to block information, e. one who is attempting to "whitewash" an issue, or f. one who acts in bad faith. Joaquin Murietta 15:10, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

c 14:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I think we need to get away from personalities on this issue. The question is whether the article is a copyvio. It seems pretty clear to me that it is not. In full disclosure, I will state that I do have a dog in this fight -- I am a Republican who supports the general conduct of the war on terror, and I originally proposed AfD's for individual articles on each detainee. But this list seems to me to be appropriate to wikipedia, and the copyvio claim seems to lack substance. Brandon39 03:13, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm on the same wavelength as Brandon39 so I say this list is no copyvio. feydey 22:57, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
  • EXACTLY SO - could some Admin please do the necessary with this ridiculous listing. Thanks. --Cactus.man ✍ 17:45, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Executive Order 12333

  • keep
    • Disclaimer #1, I started this article.
    • Disclaimer #2, User:Joaquin Murietta has made a habit of nominating articles I start for deletion. They also follow around the articles I edit, and make unexplained excisions of my contributions, that seem indistinguishable from vandalism to me.
    • This executive order is as significant as any of the others in the List of United States federal executive orders.
    • Reinterpretation of this Executive Order was necessary for President George W. Bush to order the targetted killing (ie assassination) of leading terrorists. That makes this EO notable. -- Geo Swan 14:38, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep Looks notable and encyclopedaic to me. Dlyons493 Talk 14:55, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Speedy Keep. Bad faith nom per Geo Swan. --JJay 15:22, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
BEfore (or in this case after)you accuse me of bad faith, here is the original edit, before you posted:

Executive Order 12333 extends the powers and responsibilities of US intelligence agencies and directs the leaders of other US federal agencies to co-operate fully with CIA requests for information.

I will make further comments on your talk page. Joaquin Murietta 15:51, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Speedy and strong keep, I hate stalkers. --Striver 16:03, 5 November 2005 (UTC) Your hatred is duly noted, but why not take a look at my edits to Ali Ahmad Said?Joaquin Murietta 16:27, 5 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] == Problems with the article you started on Abderrahman Ahmad

I just edited Abderrahman Ahmad. I added his date of birth. Also, it appears you got his name wrong and he was arrested in Pakistan not Afghanistan. I deleted some irrelevant stuff and some NPOV outdated links. I added some recent news. Please let me know if this appears to be in bad faith or do you want to revert it to your version. Joaquin Murietta 18:06, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


Greetings,

Since you voted to keep the article List of Guantanamo Bay detainees I thought I would give you a "heads-up". A copyright violation was filed against the article, on October 11th. It was filed by someone who had voted to delete the article on October 5th.

I believe that the copyright violation is entirely bogus. I believe it is bogus because, as explained in Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, lists of facts, like lists of names, cannot be copyright. This Feist v. Rural case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which made the possibly counter-intuitive ruling that the amount of effort someone put in to compiling a list plays no role in determining whether that list is eligible for copyright protection.

Even if alphabetic lists of names could be copyright, I believe the wikipedia list would not be violating copyright since the list was compiled from various sources.

Yes, I have considered that this user invoked a bogus copyright violation to achieve a result that failed in the {AfD}. Yes, I asked them to terminate the copyright violation process, in light of Feist v Rural. They declined. The backlog in the administrators dealing with copyright violations seems to be on the order of a month long.

Anyhow, I wanted the people who had shown interest in the article to not freak out, or feel betrayed, by seeing the copyright violation tag. -- Geo Swan 11:36, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Decumanus"

[edit] The heads-up

The wikipedia is a community JM. We are all responsible to one another, for what we do and say.

I don't think I did wrong to give the heads-up. Now I saw your comments, where you talked about me and my friends calling you a "right wing cuban", a "Mexican bandito". I think the record shows I haven't called you any names, including these two. But, the historical person whose name you borrowed for your nom de plume, the real Joauquin Marietta, was a bandit. I agreed to stop using the term "gitmo", as did the other person you asked. You made that request stating that the term reminded you of the historical oppression of your people. I was going to ask you if you were really Cuban, but I didn't get around to it. I don't remember seeing anyone call you a Cuban, let alone a right wirng Cuban, but, if they did, to what extent are those descriptions forgivable, since you opened those doors yourself?

As for troll, and bad faith. I am old enough to only count someone as a troll when I think their edits are insincere. When your possible trolldom came up I said I thought your edits were sincere.

As for bad faith -- no one, other than you, really knows whether your actions were taken in good faith. All we have to go by is whether your action gave an appearance of good faith. Rather than making flat out accusations of bad faith, I tried to confine myself to suggestions that your actions gave the appearance of bad faith. I stand by that. It is not only your coyness about the true nature of your concerns, from October 5th, until you froze the list on October 11th, and your freezing of it, without any discussion, where your misconception, like the misconception that the WaPo was the "sole source" could have been dealt with.

You showed no meaningful effort to discuss your invocation of the {copy-vio} after you placed it. I don't think your defense of the invocation on the {copy-vio} page showed good faith because you misrepresented me, my statements, and my actions, and you misrepresented the meaning of Feist v Rural.

Other actions you have taken have given the appearance of bad faith. You nominated the Carolyn Wood article for deletion, based on your perception it had irredeemable POV problems. I believe you know this action was in violation of wiki policy. POV problems are not grounds for deletion. Period. You didn't even voice the nature of your concerns. I pointed out that you had violated wiki policy, and so did Cactus.man. You didn't acknowledge our questions. Still haven't. This did not give the appearance of good faith.

You have made massive edits, without explanation, or with inadequate explanations like, "removing obvious POV". This did not give the appearance of good faith.

You have criticized my grammar in a very personal way. That is a violation of wiki policy that did not give the appearance of good faith.

You criticized my maturity. And you have mocked the quality of my contributions. Neither of these actions gave the appearance of good faith.

You accused me of making stub articles solely for the purpose of subverting the results of google searchs. You didn't suggest it looked like this was what I was doing. You came right out and accused me of it. This did not give the appearance of good faith.

In the last few days you have told people how you had made "helpful" suggestions as to how I could edit the list to eliminate what you perceived as a {copy-vio}. Hello. You made this "helpful" suggestion days after you invoked the {copy-vio}, freezing the list. This "helpful" suggestion did not give the appearance of good faith to me. It might to those you told it to, who only heard your version. But it didn't to me. To me it gave the appearance of a big Foxtrot Oscar.

The list that was your gift to me? Also a Foxtrot Oscar, since I had already incorporated the names from the AP list into the wiki list over two weeks ago.

Now, about your edits, and your very personal criticisms of my edits. I would be among the first to acknowledge that the Clive Stafford Smith article was improved after the work you and Dfiv put into it. Good work. Congratulations. But your comment about my contributions to that article was personal and unfair, and unwiki. I don't think I have anything to apologize for my contributions to that article, or Gareth Pierce, or any of the biographies you criticized for lacking birth dates.

The start you put on the Joyce Hens Green was excellent. Let me acknowledge that. Other edits of the last day or two give the appearance of good faith.

Like I have said before, I am open to discussing any serious issue or question you pose to me in a civil manner. I'll repeat, good work on the Joyce Hens Green article, and many other recent edits. -- Geo Swan 16:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Blather and spew! And, pretentious. Joaquin Murietta 18:26, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The World According to Cactus Man

[edit] List of Guantanamo Bay detainees discussion

I am relieved that other people appreciate the idea of documenting the confinement of the detainees.

But I have to tell you -- you said the list existed long before I started adding to it? That isn't correct. I started it about, two weeks ago, when I created eight or nine articles about individual Guantanamo detainees, and five of them were suggested for deletion. Half a dozen people suggested that they weren't notable to merit individual article, and that they should all merely be listed in a list of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

About hidden agendas... I won't presume to say that Joauquin has a hidden agenda. But catch this comment: So discuss their treatment (in a neutral way) in the article about the prison, but an article about each one of these non-notable people is only America-bashing. -- Geo Swan 22:02, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

My agenda is to be la voz de la gente. Joaquin Murietta 16:20, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
You are correct Geo, I didn't check the history properly and made an incorrect assumption. This doesn't change my view that the copy-vio notification is in bad faith. What bothers me about this is that Joaquin Murietta intimated that he would investigate his concerns about sources and return to discuss these. This pre-emptive copy-vio notification seems to me just to be a 'legal' method of achieving partial page blanking and imposition of a particular POV. Seems to me that you were just expending a great deal of energy to verify the list, and you did a fantastic job IMO.
As for the link you provide, well I recall that Zoe cited anti-Americanism in her listing of the main article on AfD. I reject that POV completely and did so in the AfD voting, as did others. --Cactus.man ✍ 07:55, 12 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Response to the comments on my talk page

In response to your comments on my talk page, I looked at the last few days of your user contributions. You are correct, you do not generally post second level warnings on anonymous user's talk pages. I assumed the worst because of your confrontational tone, ethnic remarks to me and other conduct. Joaquin Murietta 15:46, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

There was only one party engaged in any form of confrontation in our recent exchange Joaquin, and that was you. You are clearly not interested in any form of reconciliation or rational discourse so I will not respond further to any comment you may make. As for comments regarding ethnic remarks and other conduct (whatever that may be), well that is just laughable. Check the contents of some of your postings and message summaries before you accuse others of incivility.
I am pleased to see you have withdrawn the AfD on Executive Order 12333, which spares me the bother of commenting on another of your User:Geo Swan inspired nominations. I wish you well in creating your articles and urge you again to end this personal vendetta you seem to be engaged upon. Please don't bother replying, there is no point in further discussion. --Cactus.man ✍ 17:17, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Ongoing JM Vendetta

Hi Geo, I thought things had settled down with our mutual friend JM. Well, I was clearly wrong. He has obviously been continuing his vendetta against you, and now it seems me too. I was doing a bit of vandalism clean up today and JM popped up following one of my reverts after which there was a bit of a futile exchange. He had clearly been monitoring my edits. Despite my attempts to explain and reason with him I had to give up in the end. There is no prospect of rational discussion with him and I have now completely given up all hope that his vendetta against you will end. (How did it start in the first place, was it going before the List of Guantanamo Bay detainees copy vio episode?)

I now have the great honour of being added to his 'dossier' on you. (See Joaquin Murietta GS). User:Striver has also been added. This all smacks of stalker like behaviour, and is all very unnecessary. I see from the above discussion with User:Splash that you may be considering filing an RfC, well I am not sure that this is necessary yet, but if you feel compelled to do so, you will have my support. I really am disheartened at JM's attitude and behaviour over the last month or so. It is all very baffling as he seems to create quite a large number of decent articles as well as wasting everyones time and energy with this disruptive behaviour pattern The joys of WP ... Regards. --Cactus.man ✍ 17:56, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] the Gang's all here

== Hi! == [5]

You tell me if you need a revert somewhere or a vote somewhere! Im on your side! --Striver 17:23, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Striver's Spelling issues

From Talk:Juma Mohammed Abdul Latif Al Dossary

[edit] Just so we have a complete record, this article was again reverted

by the following user --Striver who posted the following comment on George Swan's talk page. You tell me if you need a revert somewhere or a vote somewhere! Im on your side! --Striver 17:23, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

So the article now stands, with typos and all, just as George originally posted it. Joaquin Murietta 17:32, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, and i stand for it! having bad gramar is one thing, ommiting facts is another, and nothing bothers me as much as using the first as an excuse to do the second!
You have better gramar? The gramar bothers you? THEN FIX THE GRAMAR, dont delet material without consensus or even justification!
--Striver 17:45, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Hey, Striver, it's not bad gramar. ;-) Joaquin Murietta 18:20, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My edits of George Swan's writing, nothing helps, he gets his friends to revert.

There are dozens of poorly written articles that Geo Swan has put up, including the ones I have taken the time to fix. I can't keep up with him. Cleanup tags don't work. AfD's don't work. The talk page does not work. For example, please look at the before and after (my edits and his originals) on


[edit] Links to George's Public Efforts to Rally support

  • "heads up" mass posting, [7]
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../j/o/a/User%7EJoaquin_Murietta_GS_3a46.html"