Talk:Marsden-Donnelly harassment case

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This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

This article was nominated for deletion on November 23, 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

[edit] arrangement

I'm thinking that the best arrangement for the article is:
1. Background (swimclub)
2. Mutual accusations (intro: tryout for team)
2a. Marsden's accusations (rape at end of 2 year relationship)
2b. Donnelly's accusations (2 years of stalking followed by false accusation)
3. SFU process
3a. First stage (panel)
3b. Appeal, arbitration, and overturn
4. Aftermath
4a. Media controversy
4b. change to SFU harassment procedures
5. Epilogue
5a. Marsden's subsequent career
5b. Donnelly's subsequent career
Thoughts?

[edit] deletion?

Yes, I have a thought. I think the procedure should start with nominating this article for deletion. It is hard for me to understand why we are devoting an entire article to a minor harassment case that was never even litigated. -Will Beback 21:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I had my own doubts when I first saw that it'd been created, but:

• Rachel Marsden has since emerged as a Canadian political commentator and scandal sheet celebrity; her own notability now is undisputed. Out of considerable contention on her page, there seems to be a rough consensus, between "both" "sides," that details of the case might best be spun off into a separate article, lest that overwhelm Marsden's subsequent claims to note.
• It was a widely-enough followed and ongoing story in the national press of a major country in 1997. It's probably the most contentious issue in the history of the large and important Simon Fraser University, leading to the resignation of its president; as the article on SFU expands to track the university's history, and an article on president Stubbs is written as it'll probably eventually be, this article here would be a handy link from both, and would help avoid duplication, edit wars at each, etc.
• Finally, its length, detail and sourcing — disproportionate on the face of it — is in some measure necessary, as bucketsofg has written elsewhere, because it is a complicated, he-said-she-said issue... Samaritan 22:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Samaritan. As I noted in the Marsden talk page, this is enormously complicated from every angle: both the nature of the allegations (he-said-she-said), the complexity of the procedural questions, and the results. And, it should be added, the story got press time in at least a hundred news articles over the space of a year, and these were not only in Canada, but many in the USA and some in the international press.Bucketsofg 23:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

If you guys say so. However if that's the case then perhaps the accounts in the respective biographies should be trimmed to short stubs. -Will Beback 00:45, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Should not this be stubbed or deleted because of the ArbCom decision? What, exactly, does the ArbCom decision mean and how should it be enforced? Stompin' Tom 20:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Rachel Marsden has now been deleted for having an unbalancing focus on negative aspects of the life of this minor celebrity. This article is entirely about negative aspects of her life. Simply because negative material is subarticle'd should not shield it from BLP considerations. It should be stubbed or deleted. - Merzbow 23:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Probably an administrator should so it, rather than an non-admin risk provoking an edit war. A few people seem to have strong feelings on this. The ArbCom says it should go, and I do not understand why they, or their clerk, does not delete it. While the Marsden article had some work done on it to mitigate the worst abuses, this one seems pretty much as it was when it was dealt with by ArbCom. As I wrote on the Marsden discussion page, does this dispute set a precedent of any kind? From what I've read, no. Does it fit into a bigger picture regarding sexual harassment, or allegations of same, in academia? Are there more articles on Wikipedia dealing with individual cases of allegations of sexual harassment? If so, does this case belong in a broader article? I rather doubt that, since there really was no official resolution. Both sides got cash settlements and a restoration to the status quo pro ante in regards to theor positions in the university. I'm not really sure what this is about. Sexual harassment? Unfair allegations? Sexual harassmenent/allegations in academia? Or is it just some local story that titilates a small group of people in Vancouver. Time to, as Slim Virgin says on the Rachel Marsden talk page, draw a line under this. Let it sit for a few years and see if anyone cares or remembers, or mention it in context in an over-reaching article on sexual harassment allegations on campus. Stompin' Tom 23:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted and protected against recreation. As others have said, this was a minor harassment allegation in a university. It was never litigated, it was never established what had happened, and it set no precedents. Let's put this situation out of its misery. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this was a major case which received significant national coverage. I'm very concerned about the precedent set by removing this article, particularly without any substantive discussion having taken place. CJCurrie 05:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

CJ, you're mistaken. There was a substantive discussion: an AfD that closed three days ago with 16 votes. The only "delete" votes were from the admin who had previously speedied it and 206.191.39.205 (talk • contribs). That's all I'm going to say here as a) I've already explained at least three times why this article should not be deleted, and b) there's not much point having a discussion via a Discussion page that will be deleted in the near future. Kla'quot 05:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

You both conveniently forget to mention the ArbCom case with rulings that specifically apply to these articles, but whatever. - Merzbow 06:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

For reference, the relevant ArbCom remedy:

• Articles which relate to Rachel Marsden, may, when they violate Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, be reduced to a stub by any user or deleted, together with their talk pages, by any administrator. Removal of poorly sourced negative information or of blocks of grossly unbalanced negative material is not subject to the three revert rule. Such material may be removed without limit. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden

I don't think we need to get into an edit war over this. -Will Beback · † · 07:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk pages

I would like to delete both the article talk pages because they're full of BLP issues. I'll wait for a bit because people may want to continue this discussion. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:36, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It might be useful, given the ArbCom decision on this matter, to spell out clearly where the article violated WP:BLP before deleting the talkpage. A quick look around here, the ArbCom decision and at Google's cache of the original article leaves me unclear on the degree of the violation. Note also the Request for Clarification filed to ArbCom. I think an unprotect may be in order. This does not mean that specific sections of either talkpage should not be immediately deleted per WP:BLP. Hornplease 21:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the talk pages should be deleted. There is carefully researched source material in them useful for rewriting the article and I don't see anything libelous there. I just started looking at this stuff (I'd never heard of Marsden before) but she appears to be a genuine public figure and not exactly the queen of neutrality herself. I can't see the deleted article on WP but the currently mirrored version on answers.com doesn't look like an attack article to me. Checking a news database finds tons of stories separate from the harassment case. The National Post said the Canadian conservative party sounded her out about running for an MP seat but then changed their mind because she was too "high profile" and that was over a year ago (National Post, Nov 26 2005, p. A5). If she's too high profile to run for Parliament, I'd say she's a public figure. I don't understand why the article was deleted and I think this place has gotten too deletion happy. 67.117.130.181 11:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, looking a little further at the database hits, a lot (maybe most) of them are to Marsden's own columns. Still, that confirms that the columns themselves are real. Was anyone really doubting this? Some of the reasoning in this dispute by supposedly sensible people is pretty bizarre. WP:RS#Self-published_sources_in_articles_about_themselves makes it pretty clear that Marsden's personal site is an ok source for this basic factual info unless someone is disputing that rachelmarsden.com is actually Marsden's site. 67.117.130.181 20:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)