Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden/Evidence

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Contents


[edit] Arthur Ellis

[edit] Bio of a living person becomes vehicle of smear

To me, this is not a dispute over Rachel Marsden. I don't know whether Marsden is guilty or innocent of all, or any, of the allegations made against her. I don't think anyone can ever know, as most of the allegations and "evidence" has never been tested. This appears to me to be a he/said - she/said dispute, with a few other allegations piled on to buttress the first one. I do not believe anyone would care about these allegations if Marsden was not an attractive young woman. I do believe the other party in this case, Liam Donnelly, has a hand in this entry and may well be one of the editors who guards it so tenaciously.


This is an issue of the quality of scholarship on Wikipedia and the future of the encyclopedia: whether it will be the vehicle of every ax-grinder in the world to shape the public persona of others, or a useful and high-quality reference tool. Removing biased and salacious material is not "blanking". A few observations:

  • Allegations are simply that: allegations. If they are not tested in a court or a proper tribunal, they are simply claims that have been made. If they are minor (as opposed to allegations against Martin Bormann or Lee Harvey Oswald) and so old that it it is obvious they will not be empirically tested -- as these are -- they should not be used to prove "notoriety".
  • Stringing a series of allegations together should not be used to attempt to define a person in an encyclopedia.

The article was originally drafted in July, 2005 and "owned" by user:Homeontherange, who left Wikipedia in August in the face of an arbitration case that was going badly for him. user: Ceraurus made his first edits at 12:57 Jan. 30, 2006. At that time, the article talked about Marsden's father'suspension by the Vancouver school board. It brought in immaterial facts like the Moonie ownership of the Washington Times, which printed Marsden's work. Throughout, it suggested she was a liar. Over-all, the piece could be characterised as a hatchet job. To make a very long story short, by the spring, Ceraurus was banned for "edit warring". I have tried to soften the article as much as possible, beginning a few weeks after Ceraurus' ban. I had edited other articles without problems, I have been attacked on Wikipedia, on Marsden and other pages, since undertaking this work.

And here's the result. I took it, at random, from a blog comment:

Marsden is a convicted criminal. She falsely accused her swim coach of raping her, a month after the accusation she was still sending him suggestive emails and pictures. Three men and one woman have accused her of stalking. I wonder where little Miss Bisexual sits on the gay marriage issue? She lied about her experience on her resume. She worked for an MP under false name (most likely to hide her criminal past). This woman has no credibility, she is a whack job and in a CBC interview she was very unimpressive. Her columns in the Sun and the Post are infantile. The right needs to find a better spokesperson than Rachel Marsden, she is an embarrassment to large and small c conservatives alike. I have supported the Progressive Conservative party in many elections and the likes of Rachel Marsden we can do without.
*The above information about Rachel Marsden’s criminal history has been obtained from wikipedia.com


Posted by: John Purvis | May 18, 2006 12:10:23 PM

[edit] Article is an attempt to ruin reputation of newspaper columnist

While proponents of this version of the Rachel Marsden article claim her notoriety arises from the so-called harassment controversies, work on the article did not begin until she was hired as a columnist by the National Post newspaper. In fact, departed and disgraced admin user:Homeontherange began writing the entry at the exact time Marsden moved fron Vancouver to Toronto and began writing a column.

[edit] Jimbo Wales weighs in

Jimbo criticized the over-all tone of this and related articles. As usual, criticism of the article's tone was ignored, and the cabal involved in this mess did their typical stunt (repeated by Bucketsofg in recent arbitrations) of concentrating their energy on one small point (French fluency) and ignoring the big picture:

Overall tone

Speaking now as an ordinary editor, I feel that the tone of this article is excessively negative to the point of editorializing inappropriately. As an example, we say "with a minor in French, a language in which she claims fluency.". Ok, if she did minor in French in college, is there any particular reason why we should doubt her claimed fluency? What is the purpose of the clause? Has any published source ever doubt it? (If so, then let's have a citation.) Just because she is controversial, this is not a justification for random insinuations. There are many other details of this nature in this article and related articles.--Jimbo Wales 12:27, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Here's how the article looked then: [2] Here's how it looks now:[3]. If anything, it's just as bad, but written in a more faux scholarly fashion. Wales was named in this arbitration, and I am dismayed that he has not explained this posting.Arthur Ellis 20:42, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Admins hide behind process, lose sight of the ball

In their zeal to enforce the 3RR rule, admins have allowed this article to be dominated by anti-Marsden Canadian editors who are protected by their anonymity, and who have been able to tag-team to keep this article negative.

[edit] "Be Kind to Newbies" Forgotten

In their zeal to protect the salacious Marsden article, the handful of Canadian editors and admins who have nurtured the entry immediately attacked Mark Bourrie/Ceraurus when he criticised the article, blocked him, and within a few weeks of his arrival on Wikipedia, banned him. If arbitrators believe the article is biased and admins and editors have acted in bad faith, Ceraurus' ban should be lifted and his pages cleared of the negative material placed on them. In return, Ceraurus should be placed on probation and/or should work with a mentor until he learns the ropes of Wikipedia (and to control his edit-warring) -- if he wants to return.

[edit] Admins aren't with the program re bios of living people

See Konstable's entry on the Request for Arbitration entry, where he dismisses my argument re: bios of living people, says he did not read the entry, and issued the block because of 3RR, which, he believed, took precedence. Note, too, the fact he said he was too busy to give the issue a complete examination because of personal problems. When Wikipedia admins cannot do their work properly, they should take a break, rather than do a poor job.

[edit] Talk page

Isolating all the vicious material posted about Marsden would make this much too long. Please glance over the talk pages, including those that were archived. They make very distressing reading.

[edit] Geedubber's Double Standard

On my talk page, user: Geedubber says this in regards to me using press clippings stored at www.kinsellasux.blogspot.com :

Please stop making personal attacks against me or any other editors. a site called kinsellasux is clearly biased. any info from that site should be questioned. how do I know that the article is printed verbatim? . Geedubber 00:12, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

but it's OK for Bucketsofg to reach into his own storage site, bucketsdata.wordpress.com for material about Marsden, without any criticism from Geedubber. This is typical of the double-standards and the agenda-driven actions of these two editors.

[edit] Bucketsofg bias

Not all of Bucketsofg's edits are bad, and he is certainly not the worst offender in the Marsden entry. That pride of place would go to departed Wikipedia admin Homeontherange [4].

He has, however, tried to equivocate and to defend a few of his biased edits, while ignoring many, many more.


Bucketsofg is notable because has an ongoing campaign to discredit former Canadian MP Gurmant Grewal and anyone associated with him. (Bucketsofg takes control of the Grewal article July 17, 2005, his first day on Wikipedia, and reverts most attempts to change it [5].) Grewal may well be a great target for investigative journalists, but that is not Wikipedia is supposed to be about. The Bucketsofgrewal (Bucketsofgrewal.blogspot.com) blog is written anonymously. He also owns and uses bucketsdata.wordpress.com as a data repository to link to, and, I have learned, contributes to several other anti-Grewal blogs.+ I believe it's rather unethical, unhealthy, cowardly and more than a bit creepy that someone spends so much time and energy researching ex-backbench MP Grewal and writing about him anonymously. His racist puns on the name of Grewal people may help explain this pathology, but I suspect there may be more basic political rationale for this fixation. Bucketsofg's first edit, in June, 2005, was to the Gurmant Grewal entry [6], and, in fact, he did little else until early this year, when he moved on to Marsden and other projects. His first edit to Marsden is to change her description from "blunt conservative" to "controversial conservative" [7]. Here, he removes the fact she was a catwalk model, which may or may not be notable, but is certainly as notable as many other parts of the entry [8]. He gets back to the Grewal stuff here, suggesting the fact Marsden worked in Grewal's office while facing very minor charges (re-routing e-mails and sending too much candy) is "controversial"+ [9]. Here, [10], he uses a blog entry to back up a claim that Marsden has falsified her resume.+ Most of his edits will be done in a similar, incremental but determined way. Here, he agrees to use original research from his blog on the Gurmant Grewal entry [11]+. He uses this material, among other places, here: [12]. Here, he coaches Ian King on the same practice: [13]+ By February he was busy on Marsden and the entry for Ezra Levant, editor of the Western Standard, a magazine he has mocked on his own blog, www.bucketsofgrewal.blogspot.com but that suffices as his source for Marsden.+ In the title [14], the Western Standard calls Marsden a "fraud artist", an allegation that certainly does not come from any criminal charges and is not even made in the Western Standard article. Surely that should have raised a red flag.+ Here [15] he discounts IMDB as a source for Marsden's work on the TV show 20/20, preferring instead to have the entry read as though she is a liar in that regard. But here he uses IMDB as a source on how often Marsden has appeared on The O'Reilly Factor and changes "frequent" guest to "occassional" guest [16].+ While IMDB is not a good enough source for Bucketsofg on something that helps Marsden's image, a blog is fine for making her look like a liar re: 20/20 [17]. Here, [18], Bucketsofg uses an anonymous source quoted in a blog to make it appear Marsden falsified her resume.+ Here, Bucketsofg changes "sexual harrassment" to "date rape" based on a story he clipped from a newspaper in Kitchener, Ontario (some 2,000 miles from Vancouver) and stored in his own web site[19]. (This was something I was taken to task for in the Warren Kinsella arbitration}. Here, [20] Bucketsofg places lurid e-mail entries in the Marsden article, along with considerable sourcing for Donnelly's defence but none for Marsden.+ Here, he sexes it up a bit: now naughty pictures are slipped under Donnelly's door: [21]+. Marsden has a reason for sending Donnelly a Playboy magazine subscription, but Bucketsofg adds another quote out of context: [22]. When Ceraurus trimmed back the harassment material, Bucketsofg added more: [23]. Marsden refused to go into an arbitration, a decision that Bucketsofg starts using against her here: [24], and Bucketsofg doesn't bother to give the explanation Marsden made in that article.+ In this edit [25], he removes the fact that the case was never adjudicated and, from at least a legal standpoint, is still undecided.+ Many months after beginning work on the article, Bucketsofg finally includes the fact Donnelly admitted having Marsden in his apartment [26] but that fact doesn't last long in the body of the text. In fact, almost all of Marsden's reported defences and explanations -- at least the ones chosen by this cabal -- are found in the footnotes.+ Here [27], he adds Donnelly's claim that he boycotted the SFU sexual harrassment process on the advice of his lawyer. He does that again here: [28]. Bucketsofg seems prepared to accept all of Donnelly's claims at face value [29], but none of Marsden's.+ For instance, a claim by Marsden that Donnelly had chosen pictures of her from her modelling portfolio is moved from the body text to a reference: [30]. Here, he adds a "warning" to Marsden from the university, sourced by a Toronto Star story selected by Bucketsofg and stored in his blog. [31]. Here [32], Bucketsofg refers to Marsden as "stridently conservative"+ (as opposed to the original "blunt". Note the incrementalism. It's similar to this edit [33], where he torques up the SFU decision from a virtual tie between Donnelly and Marsden to something negative about Marsden) and here, where a signing someone up for a subscription to Playboy is made, by the adding of the word "even", to look a little worse: [34]+. Here, he removes a humanizing factor: Marsden uses humour in her columns [35]; Not content with these fixes to the Marsden page, Bucketsofg begins, on Feb. 28, a page on the Marsden-Donnelly harassment case[36] and within a few days has written a long article [37], and, in fact, been the only one working on it to any extent [38]+.

I had believed he was different from Homeontherange, Pasboudin, and the rest of the Canadian cabal. He betrayed my trust and incrementally brought the article to the sad and sorry place it is today. Quite simply, if you believe the article is a disgrace to Wikipedia, you should de-sysop Beacat and Bucketsofg and allow the article to be re-written to remove the imbalance toward negativity.

Bucketsofg seeks to defend the indefensible. As Bucketsofg works anonymously, it is impossible to know his relationship to Grewal or any other actor in Canadian politics, but there is speculation in the Canadian media that Bucketsofg is a federal Liberal operative. Bucketsofg also may be connected with Warren Kinsella. Certainly, the very fact that he uses Bucketsofg (from bucketsofgrewal.blogspot.com, which is, in fact, a racist slight against Grewal people, and edited Gurmant Grewal as his first Wikipedia acvt, points to an agenda. Bucketsofg was an active participant in the very recent Warren Kinsella arbitration, probably motivated by my opposition to his edits of this article. Bucketsofg was a very active editor on Rachel Marsden last winter. During that edit war over the Marsden article, Ceraurus was permantly banned for edit warring. Bucketsofg has a pattern of provoking edit wars, documenting the misbehavior that results, then using them, via administrator notice boards, to affect bans. he is also artful at selecting contentious material and twisting it, while failing to, or refusing to, come to grips with the main thrust of my complaint.

("+" mark allegations that Bucketsofg has not acknowledged and attempted to defend. This is consistent with his "pick 'n' choose" method of debate, which consists almost entirely of erecting straw men).

[edit] Bucketsofg Pick 'n' Choose

Bucketsofg likes to pick and choose the most incriminating material possible re: Marsden. Below, he posts a link to a press release that, he says, quotes a mediator casting doubt on Marsden's credibility. The remark won't be found at Bucketsofg's link. In fact, that remark is picked from this list of findings by the SFU mediator:

1. Mr. Donnelly acknowledges that, based on inappropriate legal advice, he breached the University's policies by not participating in the harassment proceeding.

2. In retrospect, Mr. Donnelly acknowledges that he should have taken steps to end communications from Ms. Marsden at an earlier time.

3. Mr. Donnelly acknowledges the requirement for a University harassment policy and that it binds all members of the University community.

4. The University acknowledges that there were flaws in the procedures that led to Mr. Donnelly's dismissal.

5. The findings of the harassment panel were based on Ms. Marsden's credibility. Inconsistencies between her statements before the panel and her response to Mr. Donnelly's harassment complaint cast doubt on her credibility.

6. These recommendations do not constitute criticism of the panel members, whose report was based on the evidence and material placed before them.

7. There is no intent to disturb the remedies which the University has committed to Ms. Marsden.

8. Mr. Donnelly is reinstated in his position as Head Varsity Swim Coach effective immediately.

It comes from the actual mediation decision, here: [39]. In context, the remark is somewhat less damning, especially considering the fact Marsden did not take part in this mediation. Her refusal to do so could be defended as the actions of a victim of sexual harassment and/or asssault who may not have wanted to continue to drag the flawed process out. Bucketsofg ignores this type of behaviour, and this example, in his defence.

[edit] Selected newspaper clippings are not always good sources

Because of the nature of the original Marsden-Donnelly dispute, allegations that normally would not be newsworthy -- Boyd, O'Hagan, Morgan -- found their way into newspapers and into Wikipedia. As well, since daily newspapers tend to cover controversies incrementally, it can sometimes be easy to pick and choose articles that appear incriminating, and to ignore follow-up stories that might argue for another point of view.Arthur Ellis 20:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Beware of Hidden Agendas

The article relies on two main sources: a report to the Fraser Institute by a Simon Fraser University professor writing about a controversy at his own university (which would hardly pass a journalistic test for objectivity and would never survive peer review) and an article written by one of Marsden's competitors. Other sources are selected newspaper clippings. After initially using the Fraser Institute study, Bucketsofg simply broke down the sources cited in that article and used them as sources to make it appear as though he had re-researched the entry. On his own blog, however, Bucketsofg has mocked the Fraser Institute and its methodology.

[edit] Red Flag sources

The article relies partly on Kevin Steel, "The Strange Allure of Ms. Marsden: How does a serial stalker, convict and fraud artist end up Canada's hottest young conservative pundit? Quite easily, actually," July 11, 2005, Western Report p. 50-51, and an article called "The barracuda speaks," British Columbia Report (date missing in reference). These articles should raise some red flags. Marsden is not a "convict". She has never been accused of fraud. And an article with a title calling a woman a "barracuda" should be taken with a grain of salt. But it all goes into the witches brew of smear created by the defunct admin Homeontherange, and the present admins Bearcat, Bucketsofg, and, most recently, Thatcher101. Arthur Ellis 20:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bearcat bias

Bearcat began his edits of the article at 06:12, 16 August 2005 and immediately showed bias, writing this as his edit description: "(as tempting as :Category:Canadian bullshit artists would be, I suppose that would constitute POV. damnit.)" His first actual edit of text was to revert two days of re-writes of mine, saying there had been a problem with references: [40]; here, Bearcat ignores my assertion the page violates policies regarding bios of living persons and my attempts to bring the article up to standards: [41] and threatens to edit block me if I push the issue: [42]. He is also a frequent contributor of nasty anti-Marsden material on the talk pages. His hostile attitude toward Marsden comes through very clearly in the notes he's made on this page and the workshop page.Arthur Ellis 11:48, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ian King

King's first edit, Aug. 6, 2006, was to re-insert Marsden's birthday: [43], which, a few days later, Bucketsofg, who, as an admin, had edited Marsden so many times before, finally removed: [44]. Most of his "work" on the article has been to keep up anti-Marsden rhetoric on the talk pages, most of which have been archived. All of King's newspaper "evidence", his claim that hundreds of articles were negative to Marsden, can only be accepted if one believes that not a single newspaper reporter ever bothered to ask for, or to print, Marsden's side of the story. Incredibly, Ian King continues, below, to defend the despicable inclusion in the entry of information about Marsden's father's conviction.Arthur Ellis


[edit] Hidden Agendas of Failed Journalists

Ian King is a frustrated events listing typist at a give-away paper in Vancouver. Admin Bearcat calls himself an under-employed freelance writer. It is understandable they would have professional jealousy and spite for Marsden, who, despite being, in their minds, tainted goods, has had a successful career as a journalist. There may be other Canadian editors who have had similar difficulty making their mark in journalism. It is best for people who feel envy in these kinds of situations to avoid bringing their baggage to Wikipedia.Arthur Ellis 16:02, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppetry

user: Mackensen is wrong when he says I am User: Ceraurus. Bucketsofg, too, tries to make Ceraurus a synonym for me in a poor and shabby attempt to shake off the overwhelming proof of his bias and obsession. I do not know how I can go about proving this negative. However, I hope this time arbitrators stick to the issue of the article. I believe they lost sight of the ball on Warren Kinsella, lost themselves in rules and process, and did not consider the edits to the article itself. This time, the article is so obviously agregious that arbitrators cannot miss the implications regarding the Canadian cadre of editors and admins. The Craigleithian identity was an attempt to dump the oft-attacked user: Arthur Ellis and try to begin anew on Wikipedia, without harassment and attempted outings on Wikipedia. Bucketsofg attempts to lay every bit of trolling re: Rachel Marsden on my door. He seems to accuse me of faking Ceraurus' death. It doesn't matter that the IPs are not mine. Just add more lies to the stack, and, in his mind, it begins to look like truth. You are asked to believe that all IPs in Ottawa, whether from the 40,000-student University of Ottawa, the huge National Library, large commercial Internet providers, etc. posting material that Bucketsofg does not like, belong to me. As well, other participants in the Marsden dispute appear to me to be sockpuppets, including user:wiederaufbau, who arrives in the midst of the arguments, makes very few edits other than those connected with Marsden and Warren Kinsella and disappears from Wikipedia six weeks ago, his last post being to the Kinsella arbitration [45]. He may be the same person as unpunished wikistalker user: Pete Peters. So, can people bring their campaign against some no-name MP and his associates to Wikipedia and do what they like as long as folks are baffled with ludicrous accusations, with lots of meaningless IPs and links? I've looked at some of the edits of my so-called sock puppets, Isotelus, Ceraurus and Marie Tessier, and none of them seemed trollish, evil or untrue. The rest, a bunch of IP numbers of many IP companies, insitutions, etc., are called suspected sockpuppets. I suspect Mackensen's reach has exceeded his grasp. As well, even if you think I am guilty of all of the allegations of sockpuppetry, remember Bucketsofg, Bearcat and Thatcher131 are administrators, as was Homeontherange.Arthur Ellis 20:19, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

BTW, "torque" is the way you spell the act of ratcheting up the invective in an article. It's a pretty common term among educated people.Arthur Ellis

[edit] Bucketsofg's Sock

Who is user:Bogman2, who edits Bucketofg's sockpuppet allegation without skipping a heartbeat or drawing a revert? [46].? It's an "alternate account" of Bucketsofg, according to the user page. Now, I don't know about you folks, but there seems to me to be a very, very tiny difference between an "alternate account" and a "sockpuppet". Oops, huh Buckets? Maybe it's time to do a little checkuser, and toss in the dearly departed Weideraufbau, too. And maybe Pasbouding and samaritan, for that matter, as they have been very noticable by their absence in this debate.Arthur Ellis 14:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of Mark Bourrie's name

Mark Bourrie's name is flung around this section with reckless abandon. If I were Mark Bourrie (which I am not), I'd expect those who use my name to have the courage and courtesy to remove their masks. I take it Wiki has no policy regarding outing editors, or so it seems re:Bucketsofg. Arthur Ellis 18:41, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tendentious edits

Bucketsofg's accusations of so-called "tendentious editing" involved putting recent allegations against the SFU swim team into the article. It was the Globe and Mail, however, and not me, that made the connection between Donnelly, the swim team, and the hazing. If it had nothing to do with Donnelly, why would it matter that he was not available for comment, as mentioned in the article cited below by Bucketsofgrewal? But this editing "sin" pales in comparison with posts by regular editors (I'm not going to be bothered with the trolling, which, if it had been pro-Marsden, would certainly have been blamed on me.) Here, Samaritan implies, because Marsden writes for the Washington Times, she's connected to the Moonies: [47]; Here, Pasboudin suggests she's a liar about working at 20/20 because of a quote from an unnamed source in a Toronto newspaper and changes "was" a catwalk model to "claims to have been training" as a catwalk model: [48]; Here Pasboudin lays the War in Iraq at Marsden's feet: [49]; here, Samaritan's request to assume good faith is reverted to a version where it's implied she's a liar when she says she has training as a photographer and catwalk model: [50]; here, it's implied she somehow recieved undeserved college credits: [51]; here, in spite of Wiki policy, her birthday is added: [52]; here, an allegation against her father is added to the entry: [53]; here's a version of the entry where, in the first paragraph, authors consider attacks on Marsden in the Canadian gossip magazine Frank to be quite important: [54]; Here, admin Cantsleepclownwilleatme considers it important to restore the claims about her unearned university credits and the implication that Marsden lied about working for 20/20:[55]; Here, Fred Bauder's attempts to soften the article and explain the real meaning of a conditional discharge (after a brief reversion war with Homeontherange) are undone: [56]; soon afterwards, Homeontherange is back to distort the meaning of a conditional discharge: [57]; Here, Ceraurus makes his first edit, removing a paragraph alleging Marsden's photo on her web page was Marsden's face photoshopped on a picture of Julia Roberts and adding Marsden is a frequent guest on Dennis Miller and Bill O'Reilly's show [58] and is immediately set upon. Homeontherange quickly restores the Julia Roberts line [59]. Ceraurus removed the line about Marsden's supposedly unearned credits [60] but this was quickly reverted [61]]. Here, Pasboudin ensures the unearned credits, Frank Magazine line and other negative, unsourced and unimportant material stays in: [62]. Here, she's accused of being a polarizing agent in Canadian politics: [63]; Here, Pasboudin says, without proof, that Marsden was fired from the National Post: [64]; here [65], Cyberboomer removes an IMDB reference because there was "no proof IMDB not wrong or material uploaded there in bad faith."; here, he changes "she was a production assistant at ABC" to "she claims to have been..." [66]; here [67], Homeontherange claims Marsden was fired from her job as an assistant to MP Gurmant Grewal, despite Grewal's insistence her contract had expired. Here, Cyberboomer puts in a quote from an anonymous Conservative organizer slagging Marsden after Marsden turned down a request from a Conservative to run for that party: [68]. Here, Ceraurus complains about the use of a copyright picture [69]. Geedubber makes his first edit to Marsden, ignoring the complaint [70]. The complaint is ignored until Sept. 25, 2006, when the picture is finally removed by Wiki copyright police. Here [71], DRCarroll adds Marsden to "Category: Convicts". Here, after two days of my work, my edits are reverted by Wiederaufbau with no explanation except an accusation [72]:

(Please note that no one has stepped forward to defend these edits)Arthur Ellis 16:15, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weideraufbau=sockpuppet?

Hard to believe someone opened a Wikipedia account just to torque Marsden and attack me, but here's a bone to chew on:[73] Arthur Ellis 17:38, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Liam Donnelly and hazing

I did believe the incident regarding the SFU swim team's bizarre sexual hazing practices reflected on Liam Donnelly's credibility (since the Marsden-Donnelly case was really, in the end, a 'he said-she said' dispute, one argued on credibility, and everything incriminating against Marsden was stuffed into the entry by Bucketsofg and his cabal). Later, I believed Donnelly probably was not involved and so I did not try to put it back in the entry. Since, at the time, the Globe and Mail made the connection and tried to get a quote from Donnelly (as he does, in fact, run the team and is not simply a member), I don't see how anyone could see my posting as something done in bad faith, nor was it something I have been insistent on -- unlike Bucketsofg's cabal's many, many smears, which, even now, they defend. Among them, of course, is the infamous inclusion of charges against Marsden's father (defended by Ian King, below), the attempts to connect her, through the Washington Times, with the Moonies, and the misrepresentation of the Donnelly-Marsden harassment case and its outcome. Arthur Ellis 20:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My idea of what it should look like

I have created a fair and responsible version here: [74]. It has the gist of the Simon Fraser controversy, a link to the Marsden-Donnelly harassment case, removes the harassment cases that are not either proven (Boyd and O'Hagan) or not so serious that they would be in the entry of a person notable for something else (Morgan). "Sticks and Stones" is gone because Marsden is hardly an expert on US punditry or the workings of Fox News, nor does she hold herself out as one. If the CBC wants to talk about US pundits, perhaps they should talk to O'Reilly, Limbaugh and Franken. Arthur Ellis 15:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The idea that an offence to which Marsden pled guilty and received a conditional discharge is irrelevant to her professional credibility would carry more weight if she observed the principle in her own writings. Do her remarks about Svend Robinson (http://rachelmarsden.com/columns/fryrobinson.htm), who received a year's probation as she did, suggest that she considers conditional discharges off limits in assessing other public figures?

Coughy 07:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)coughy

[edit] Evidence presented by Konstable

[edit] "Admins aren't with the program"

Arthur's statement regarding my comment on the RfAr page is a mis-interpretation. Firstly, I never said I haven't read the page, I have not read the page in full (but please, if you can, point me towards at least one administrator that reads a full wikipedia article before blocking for 3RR). I have read the parts Arthur was deleting - and they were indeed sourced statements, and to add to this there had been opposition from several well-established Wikipedia editors. Whether the sources are reliable is obviously a debatable issue (hence the Arbitration). Secondly, Arthur had also violated WP:SOCK using Craigleithian (talk • contribs • count • logs • page moves • block log • email) to avoid 3RR - which seems to me like it's saying that he knew that he would get blocked for reverting the page more than 3 times. Instead of emailing and asking for an unblock, or putting an unblock template on his page, Arthur had used more sockpuppets to evade his block and post the mentioned RfAr's which were reverted by other users - whether this was the best action or not, I believe it is justified per WP:BLOCK#Evasion of blocks.

[edit] Evidence presented by Mark Bourrie/Ceraurus

This is the fifth month of my "temporary block". I continue to see allegations that I am Arthur Ellis. It appears to me that Ellis posts day and night, and that a reasonable person would see that he/she likely posts from home most of the time. Therefore, if an arbitrator would send me a fax number (mbourrie@yahoo.com), I will be happy to fax my IP bills showing that, in the early part of 2006 I was a customer of Rogers High Speed (a Canadian cable company with static IPs) and since July have been a customer of Bell/Sympatico. I have not had a Magma account since the 1990s and I will sign an authorisation to allow an arbitrator to check with Magma in that regard. I wish I had been able to offer that in the Warren Kinsella arbitration, but, at the time, that was evidence I was hanging onto in case Kinsella followed through with his libel suit threat of June 27. Since the 90 day time limit has expired, I can make that offer now. I want to apologize to Ellis for not being able to help sooner.

[edit] Evidence presented by Geedubber

[edit] First Assertion: Persistent Blanking

Arthur Ellis and his confirmed sockpuppets have repeatedly vandalized the Rachel Marsden entry by blanking large portions of sourced text.

  • Arthur Ellis

[75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83]

  • Craigleithian

[84] [85] [86]

  • Cerarus

[87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105]

  • Isotelus

[106] [107] [108] [109] [110]

[edit] Second Assertion: My first edit was legitimite

In the evidence, Arthur Ellis states "Here, Ceraurus complains about the use of a copyright picture. Geedubber makes his first edit to Marsden, ignoring the complaint". What actually happened was Ceraurus blanked the majority of the page and claimed a copyright violation as his excuse. The image in question was a publicity photo and was eligible for use on Wikipedia under the doctrine of fair use, so I reverted the page back to its original condition. If there was indeed a copyright violation that should have been addressed on the image's page - not by blanking the entire Marsden entry.

[edit] Evidence presented by Bucketsofg

[edit] First Assertion: Arthur Ellis & ArbComm rulings

On Sept. 18, the Arbitration Committee ruled that Arthur Ellis (aka Ceraurus, Mark Bourrie, etc., etc.)† had engaged in abuse, disruption, and tendentious editing in articles about himself, Warren Kinsella (his bête noire), Pierre Bourque (a friend of Kinsella's), and Rachel Marsden (a friend of Bourrie/Ellis). The remedies limited Ellis to one account and banned him from entries on Canadian politics and its blogosphere (here), including any pages mentioning Warren Kinsella.

† In the Kinsella ArbComm case, the final decision identifies Ellis, Bourrie, and Ceraurus as identical. The rest of my evidence treats this as established.

This ruling was not a day old before Ellis, through socks, began to break it. Anon-IPs consistent with his demonstrated usage vandalized the talk page of an ArbComm member and blanked an ArbComm page with assertions that "Kinsella and Pierre Bourque are psychopaths". Similar phrases ([111][112] [113], and worse) were inserted in a number of articles. Another IP, 64.230.108.137 (talk • contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • RBLs • block user • block log), again consistent with Ellis' usage, went through Canadian articles removing Kinsella's name [114], adding speedy-delete templates [115][116][117] (etc.), or making tendentious edits [118].

On 27th September, while editing his case above, Ellis breached the ArbComm remedies again. These required Ellis to limit himself to one account and not edit the Mark Bourrie entry. Arthur Ellis used 209.217.84.167 (talk • contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • RBLs • block user • block log) to edit the Bourrie entry here, removing reference to the Kinsella lawsuit. (Proof that it is Ellis is here, where Ellis signs the IP's edits as his own.)

So habitual is puppet-abuse for Ellis that he's edited this very arb comm case with at least 5 different accounts, his own and these:

[edit] Second Assertion: Sockpuppets used to revert and disrupt at RM

On Sept. 16, as the ArbComm case was coming to a close, Ellis violated 3RR by using another puppet, Craigleithian. This account had been created last July, an hour after Ellis had been blocked for 3RR. Later that same day, User:Marie_Tessier (another Checkuser identified sock) was blocked, prompting one of Ellis' IPs (209.217.96.46) to boast of creating 'sleepers' for later disruption: "she took a bullet for the team... but where one has fallen, a dozen more ripen on the vine." Given that Craigleithian was created that day, he is one such 'sleeper' created for later abuse.

For those who have been around the Marsden page, this is all familiar. In March, Bourrie nominated the RM entry for deletion [119]. Within a few hours of an unsurprising speedy keep, Bourrie created a sock, Isotelus, who immediately started a reversion war at RM (1RR, 6RR) and soon started a second AFD. Checkuser proved Isotelus was Bourrie, who was given an indefinite block, which was lifted once he had committed himself to limit himself to a single account[120], which was now named user:Ceraurus.

For the next month or so, Ceraurus made regular blankings, either as 70.25.91.205 (talk • contribs • WHOIS) [121] (Checkuser here) or as Ceraurus. On April 10-11, following a day of IP-blankings and a semi-protect, Ceraurus was caught using a checkuser-identified sock to break 3RR and was reblocked, this time indefinitely[122], a ban that several admins have reviewed but declined to lift.[123][124] [125][126]

Despite this ban, Ceraurus continued to blank large sections the Marsden page. On May 4, 142.78.64.58 (talk • contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • RBLs • block user • block log) (National Library, consistent with Bourrie's usage, as is demonstrated by his posts from 142.78.190.137, above) deleted the whole article except for two lines[127], which was then reverted more than a dozen times by Ottawa-based IPs consistent with his usage (e.g. 1RR ... 14RR). This was finally brought to an end when an admin applied a semi-protect. When this was lifted a few days later, the IP-swarm began again reverting to his two-line version of the article (15RR, etc.) Again, it only ended with a semi-protect.

While this was going on socks were used for incivility [128] [129], trollishness [130], [131], personal attacks [132], [133], and vandalism against change patrollers[134] [135] [136] [137], who had done nothing else but revert what could only seem like vandalism.

[edit] Third Assertion: Tendentious editing

Last week, ArbComm also found Arthur Ellis guilty of "sustained tendentious editing". This also is familiar to those who were involved in editing the Rachel Marsden page last spring. Two examples:

  • Bourrie/Ceraurus/Ellis often complained that articles in the Western Standard and a Fraser Institute publication were sources for the entry ([138], [139], [140]), a complaint repeated in Ellis' statement above. Beginning on Feb. 25, I began to re-source the entry from news reports contemporary to the events described ([141], [142], [143], [144], etc.). Once it became clear to Bourrie that improving the referencing made his argument about content less tenable, he began to delete the entire reference section as unnecessary and complain that the entry now had "ludicrous, overkill sourcing", starting a new reversion war.
  • In late February 2006, it was reported in the news that the SFU swim team had been suspended for a sexualized hazing ritual. This team is coached by Donnelly, whom Marsden had accused, and Bourrie inserted it in the article[145]. But Bourrie's chosen wording ("Donnelly was involved in a hazing controversy…"), implied something that was not in the original reports, which made clear that he wasn't there. This clearly didn't belong in a bio of Marsden, as I explained in talk[146]. I also pointed out his specific wording was potentially defamatory ([147]). Bourrie soon revealed his motivation: "[the hazing story] leaves some doubt that the whole SFU story came out." This is the very definition of tendentious: irrelevant detail included in a misleading way in order to insert a doubt into the readers' minds. The hazing was done by the team without Donnelly's knowledge. It no more belongs in an article about Marsden than her father's conviction. (A detail that was deleted a month before my first edit on the page.) The fact that Bourrie/Ellis can recognize the unfairness of including Marsden's father, but not see the same principle is applicable in the case of Donnelly's swim team speaks to his mindset. The contradiction is even clearer if you consider his approach to Marsden herself. He insists on including a report of something Donnelly wasn't involved in, but militates to exclude well-sourced material about Marsden, who is the actual subject of the article.

[edit] Fourth Assertion: many of AE's accusations are trivial, tendentious, and/or misleading

In both his initial complaint and in the evidence sections, Ellis provides a long list of supposed misdeeds of numerous editors, including me. Most of his accusations are too trivial to discuss: 'humour'? see my summary; 'modelling?', Bourrie approved of the edit at the time.

Others are just plain wrong:

Still other accusations are extremely misleading. In his request for arbitration, for example, he complained that I had set up spin-off article on John Stubbs "as part of a campaign to smear Marsden" Follow the link to the Stubbs article. The only reference to Marsden is a brief phrase about his resignation from the university president. How can that be a smear? I did what many a wikipedian has done: while writing up one article, I discovered someone noteworthy without an article and pulled together what material I could find.

Two other examples from his evidence above:

"Here, [18], Bucketsofg uses an anonymous source in a blog to make it appear Marsden falsified her resume. Here, Bucketsofg changes "sexual harrassment" to "date rape" based on a story he clipped from a newspaper in Kitchener, Ontario (some 2,000 miles from Vancouver) and stored in his own web site[19]."

Follow reference 18 and you'll find that I am not inserting anything, but reverting a whole series of changes. Among them is the blog of Antonia Zerbisias, a journalist who blogs about media for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest circulation daily; in the post in question Zerbisias summarizes and quotes a 2003 story in the National Post (Canada's national conservative daily) on Marsden (an article for which a reference has subsequently been added). That story found a number of exaggerations in Marsden's self-presentation, including a claim that she had been Connie Chung's assistant. The reporter phoned ABC, who denied that Marsden had ever been on the payroll. So, it is not me "making it appear that Marsden falsified her resume" (an episode was part of the page before my first entry there [149]), but preserving a link by which users could consult a source.

As for "date rape" vs "sexual harassment" in his reference 19, the sources say "date rape": a search for "date rape" and "Rachel Marsden" in lexis-nexis produces 18 items, all of them describing the accusation against Donnelly. In one of them the president of the university is quoted as saying: "There was a finding that Ms. Marsden experienced date rape." Look at note 11 of the present article where Marsden is quoted referring to the "abuse, harassment and rape" that she'd suffered. Why a citation from this paper? Because, as I alluded to at the time, when faced with a choice of references, unless one source was clearly superior (that is, more detailed, clearer about its source, etc.), I chose the earliest. Is it a problem that the story was published 2000 miles away? No, this paper is part of the Toronto Star's national syndicate; the story was entered into lexis-nexis under the KW paper rather than a Vancouver one, where the date-line places its writing. Indeed, the fact that these stories are being picked up by papers across the country illustrates that the story attracted national, rather than merely local, interest. But why Ellis' aversion to the more precise word, rather than the euphemistic 'sexual harassment'? It is because he himself has long rejected that possibility: "It's pretty clear that, whatever Donnelly did, Marsden was a quite willing and eager participant".

Obviously it would not be a sensible use of space to rebutt Ellis' allegations one-by-one here. I have, however, set up a subpage here, where I deal with his accusations point-by-point. If ArbComm has any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

[edit] Fifth Assertion: The Rachel Marsden article is consistent with BLP

The key relevant policies in the WP:BLP are verifiability, no original research, neutral point of view, and "tone"

Verifiability: The current article is sourced to mainstream contemporary newsmedia for all important details and is therefore verifiable.

Original research. This article is not original research: the parts of this article that Ellis wants changed do not expand or subtract from the record as it exists in well established secondary sources. (Those of the ArbComm with access to lexis-nexis can confirm this by searching Rachel Marsden for 1997 and pick an article at random.)

NPOV is about presenting all relevant interpretations of the data, which the current entry does: Marsden's explanations of various aspects in the Donnelly case should be included, for example, where they too can be sourced: and they have been. Ellis argues that we should ignore these sources. But to do would itself be a breach of WP:NOR. Wikipedia can report only what is verifiable from reliable secondary sources. The presentation of that material can surely be improved, and anyone who reads the articles and sees a way to improve it should.

WP:BLP#Writing_style requires that articles be "written responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone". Editors, including me, are often tone-deaf to their own contributions. But as I reread the article, I honestly believe that it sticks to the facts, avoids editorializations and weasel words. Obviously if someone can improve on its "tone", they should.

[edit] Evidence presented by 209.217.119.10 13:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bucketsofg obsession with Bourrie

I find it distressing that Bucketsofg throws Dr. Bourrie's name around Wikipedia with such abandon, while taking such great pains on the web and Wikipedia to protect his own identity. There is considerable speculation in Canadian political circles that Bucketsofg is a close associate of, or is actually, Warren Kinsella, since the causes Bucketsofg espouses (attacking Tories and Paul Martin; protecting Kinsella, silencing Kinsella critics) fit perfectly with Kinsella's agenda.209.217.119.10 13:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrators, keep your eye on the ball

Bucketsofg was able to dazzle you with IP rubbish in the Warren Kinsella arbitration. Don't let him do it again here. What's more important, truth or process? If you think this is the kind of article Wikipedia should publish, find for Bucketsofg and his friends. If it is an embarassment to Wikipedia, find for Ellis and reconsider the Warren Kinsella decision.142.78.190.137 15:02, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bucketsofg chooses only negative material

Bucketsofg, operating a web site called Bucketsofdata,[150] selectively chooses material from Lexis-Nexis, copies it ilegally, stores it in the web site, then uses it to back up his smear on Marsden. Pro-Marsden material is, of course, never chosen.142.78.190.137 14:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article focuses obsessively on Marsden's personal life

There is virtually nothing in this article about Marsden's work as a pundit.142.78.190.137 14:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article ignores Marsden's defence in Donnelly case

There's nothing in the article dealing with the fact Marsden knew her way around Donnelly's apartment and why the university allowed her to keep a substantial cash settlement.142.78.190.137 14:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Controversy" re: Boyd

As written, it doesn't make any sense.142.78.190.137 14:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Sticks and Stones

If the article is to contain quotes from this documentary, it should have representative material from Marsden's many other TV appearances. 142.78.190.137 14:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Ianking

[edit] First assertion: Jimbo's comments refer to ancient revision

On Septeber 15/16, 2005, Jimbo said on the talk page that he found the article overly negative[151]. Marsden and Bourrie take this statement as gospel despite the fact that his comments are over a year old and that the article has been revised some 1300 times since then. As the diff shows, the article is much better sourced and written in a more subdued tone. Of all the editors named in this case, only one, Bearcat, had edited the article at the time Jimbo made those comments.[152]

[edit] Second assertion: Article sources extend beyond the Fraser Institute and WS

It is impossible for the article to rely on those two articles to the extent Bourrie and Marsden assert. First, David Finley's report for the Fraser Institute covers only part of the article's scope. The report was published in August of 1998 and deals only with the Donnelly case. It is cited once, in the Donnelly section. While the Fraser Institute's leanings are well-known, it's possible to tease facts out of an ideological think-tank's reports.

The Western Standard article is based on published, verifiable reports from 1997-2004, has not been retracted or corrected, and is also cited exactly once in the article. There are some two dozen cited sources in the article, so it can hardly be said to rely on those two articles. This allegation is more appropriate to version of September 15, 2005. (Ironically, that revision came from an editor Ellis/Bourrie now praises). Bourrie and Marsden are arguing against the article of this time last year, not its current version.

[edit] Third assertion: Arthur Ellis / Mark Bourrie's bias

Bourrie misrepresented his relationship with Marsden to editors. Although he claimed no connection on the talk page[153], he described Marsden as "a friend" on his weblog some months earlier. [154] (Google cache.) The ArbComm found in a previous case that Arthur Ellis had previously edited as Mark Bourrie and his varied alter-egotists.

Bourrie has not been above blanking large amounts of sourced material, as others have noted. He's also included irrelevant information, such as including a story about a hazing scandal at the SFU swim team despite there being no evidence that Liam Donnelly had anything to do with it.[155]

Bourrie inserted incorrect information into the article when it suited his purposes. In one edit, he inflated the Toronto Sun's circulation (it's 180,000 weekday, 300,000 on Sunday)[156], and claimed it was the largest conservative daily in the country (the National Post has highercirculation and wider distribution), while downplaying the Standard's circulation by including only paid figures and further editorializing, calling it struggling regional publication. In essence, Bourrie/Ellis is using a double standard.

[edit] Fourth assertion: Irrelevant and unconfirmed material removed when challenged

Bourrie and Marsden claim that a cabal of editors prevent negative and untrue material from being removed. This is not so; while I have reverted their attempts to blank verifiable and relevant material, dubious content has been removed and not reinserted after Bourrie coherently artgued why it should not be in the article.

The article once stated that Marsden was "fired" by the National Post. Bourrie protested (loudly) that there was no sourced material to provide evidence that Marsden was fired.[157] The other editors agreed, and the consensus was that the article simply note her brief time at the Post.

For some time, the article noted that Marsden's father, a now-retired high school teacher, was suspended by the B.C. College of Teachers (not the school board) and later pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting a student. Bourrie argued it wasn't relevant to the article's subject[158] and it was subsequently removed.

As an aside, Bourrie later doubted the connection between the Marsdens, despite it being widely reported. Had he bothered to do even minimal research (something he accuses everyone else of not doing), he'd have found several reports, like the following:

  • Rachel Marsden's dad accused (John Colebourn, The Province, Jan 17, 1999. p. A4)
  • Marsden's father hit with teaching ban: B.C.'s College of Teachers suspends his licence for inappropriate conduct with female students (Janet Steffenhagen, The Vancouver Sun, Jun 10, 1999, p. A5)
  • Teacher admits sex exploitation (Gordon Clark, The Province, Dec 16, 1999. p. A40)

There was also the matter of the sudden end of Marsden's employment with Gurmant Grewal. The end of her work for Grewal coincided with news reports that she was working in his office under an assumed name. Initial reports were that she'd been fired, Grewal says he ran out of work for her. The article states Grewal's explanation and avoids speculation.

[edit] Fifth assertion: Article does not contradict newspaper corrections

In their statements, Ellis/Bourrie and Marsden pointed to four newspaper corrections [159] originally posted to the talk page by Mark Bourrie, who was at the time using the Isotelus sockpuppet.[160] Let's go through them one by one. In all four points, when I refer to 'the article', I'm referring to the Wikipedia article, not the newspaper articles to which the corrections were issued.

  1. The article reads "Grewal explained that the timing of the termination was a coincidence and that Marsden had completed the work for which she was hired" and does not refer to Marsden as a 'convicted stalker.'
  2. Same as the first part of (1) above.
  3. The article does not say that Marsden was found to have harassed Donnelly, but states that the investgation cast doubt on Marsden's veracity, referencing the report written by mediator Stephen Kelleher for SFU as part of the scandal's aftermath.
  4. The article does not say that Marsden took the case to the media (the newspaper got their roles mixed up, the wikipedia article does not), so this correction's inclusion in Bourrie's list is puzzling.

Despite the fantasies of Marsden and Bourrie (both of whom should know better), the newspaper corrections applied to specific statements in the contested newspaper reports; they were not wholesale retractions of the reports in question, nor are they in any way inconsistent with the wiki article.

[edit] Sixth assertion: Stalking allegations relevant, do not violate BLP

Bourrie's and Marsden's interpretation of BLP is a curious one. They allege that the article contians libelous material without showing where any statements on the page are false or defamatory. Anything of the sort should be removed. But what Bourrie/Ellis and his socks have been blanking is verifiable and relevant, effectively, they're trying to sweep Marsden's misdeeds under the rug. (Memo to Ms. Marsden: the term "slander" is not what you're looking for; try "libel", then kindly explain how anything in the article could be construed as such.)

What Bourrie (and his alter-ego Ellis) has ignored is that Marsden is herself a public figure because of her own chosen path in becoming a political commentator, one who seeks out high-profile engagements and TV appearances. WP:BLP#Public_figures notes that for public figures, allegations can be mentioned if published by a reliable source, even if the subject dislikes all mention of it. Neil Boyd's and Patricia O'Hagan's complaints were widely reported in the Vancouver media (both print and broadcast) at the time. None of those stories were retracted or corrected, nor the allegations withdrawn.

I would be inclined to remove an old allegation if it was an isolated incident and considerable time had passed without any similar incident. This is not the case; Marsden was twice accused of stalking between the Donnelly and Morgan affairs, before stalking Mike Morgan in 2002. The repeated pattern of stalking and alleged obsessive behaviour works against merely writing it all off as youthful indiscretion.

[edit] Seventh assertion: Little positive about Marsden reported

A search of the Canadian NewsStand database (Canadian metro dailies from 1989 to present) for articles where Marsden is mentioned in the citation or document text returns 392 results. Less than 20 are not related to her involvement in her harassment controversies, employment with Gurmant Grewal, National Post columns, letters in response to columns or her father's sexual exploitation case. Of the remaining articles, they by and large contain offhand references to Marsden antics. The article isn't drawn from a selective culling of articles as Ellis/Bourrie alleges--it's drawn from what exists. The fact is that there's been almost nothing positive published about her. Editors have searched for other sources such as the Canada Free Press where Marsden is praised and included them in the article, without citing more dubious sources in an effort to achieve some sort of false balance.

Marsden has written over 400 columns and articles, all of which are on the public record and in the public domain. To say that all you can find are "20 that aren't related to harassment controversies" is laughable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RachelMarsden (talk • contribs).
He's talking about articles about you, not by you. Bearcat 09:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IanKing/Bearcat/Bucketsofg show their own bias

Just read the rage at Marsden, the frantic anger in their posts. What more is there to say? This type of biased writing and editing will eventually kill Wikipedia. First they drive away anyone who doesn't think like them, then they cut and paste the most negative material they can find on their percieved enemies, torque it beyond all reason, and use Wiki process to keep things their way.209.217.119.10 18:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] False accusations

I defy Arthur Ellis to provide one single, solitary example of my posting an anti-Marsden comment to the talk page; my talk page comments have been exclusively on the level of Wikipedia policy, and I have never posted a negative comment about her on the talk page. In this debate, he has even characterized a discussion about the need for media sources to support a statement that she had gotten married as somehow mocking her marriage, even though not a single solitary word on the talk page does anything of the sort. There simply are not any negative comments about Marsden herself on the talk page; the only thing on the page is a circular debate about the article. The closest thing to a negative comment anywhere on the talk page is the subheading "The Stalker is Being Stalked", a heading which was placed on the talk page by Ceraurus (diff), and not by any of the administrators he continually alleges are badmouthing Marsden in the discussion.

In point of fact, the only actual personal attack ever posted to Marsden's talk page was against me, not Rachel. (see diff). And then let's check out the contribution history of the anon who posted that, shall we?

It's also an absolute fact that the first time I reverted one of Ellis' edits to the article, it was because of a formatting problem in the references, as this diff clearly shows; scroll down to "Notes and sources" and you'll see exactly what the problem was. I don't know how he can characterize it as anything else.

He mischaracterizes as "frantic anger" comments which aren't angry at all; he misrepresents the debate as people deliberately ignoring BLP in a crusade to discredit Marsden, while himself ignoring the fact that the article simply does not violate BLP as written; this is a content dispute spearheaded by a person who's so determined to sweep the allegations under the rug that he falsely characterizes any mention of them at all, even one which is quite neutral in its presentation and gives considerable airtime to Rachel's side of the story, as a priori presenting her as a guilty party, and who has continued to ignore the fact that BLP explicitly contradicts the very position he's citing it to defend. And, for that matter, most of the rest of his argument is based on misrepresentation and ad hominem attacks that he simply doesn't back up with actual evidence when challenged.

Ellis may also want to read the section of BLP dealing with "Privacy of birthdays" if he thinks that removal of her birthdate from the article somehow constitutes a POV issue. And regarding the blog entry from John Purvis, that's also a quite obvious misrepresentation of what the Wikipedia article actually says. ("Little Miss Bisexual"? Where the hell does he get that from?) Wikipedia is not responsible for other people's distortions of our content; we're responsible for what we actually say, and nothing in our article as written is either unsourced or libellous. Bearcat 23:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

It should be noted that as of a few hours ago, Ellis has again edited the article to remove all of the disputed material with the tendentious edit summary "this is what it's worth", despite the fact that this arbitration is still open. I suppose I could be wrong, but I don't believe that anybody directly involved in this process should be editing the article at all while this process is still open.
For one thing, despite Ellis' assertion above that the Morgan case wouldn't be notable enough to garner any mention in Wikipedia if anybody else had been involved, the following sentence is why he's wrong about that: In 2004, she pled guilty [161] to criminal harassment and was given a conditional discharge that included one year of probation. She completed the sentence and has no criminal record. Does he honestly think pleading guilty to criminal harassment in a court of law would be deemed too trivial for inclusion in Wikipedia on anybody else's bio? If he does, he's at least wrong, and possibly even portraying it that way on purpose in the hopes that people won't notice. Bearcat 15:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
In response to Ellis' comments below: the standard for inclusion of controversial information about a notable person on Wikipedia is not "would this information by itself make a non-famous person notable enough to have a Wikipedia article", nor is it "is this information specifically about her public career". The standard is "is this verifiable information which exists on the public record through reliable and accessible media sources". If I were a famous writer, then yes, an old drug bust would be notable enough for inclusion in my article if reliable media sources for it existed. Of course, such sources might not exist at all if I weren't already famous at the time the drug bust occurred. But again, the standard for inclusion is not "would the drug bust alone make me notable enough for an article even if I hadn't subsequently become a famous writer", nor is it "is the drug bust actually directly connected to my writing itself" — it's "are there sufficiently verifiable media sources to confirm that I was arrested for drug possession". Bearcat 17:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New edits

The Morgan discharge has nothing to do with her career as a pundit, nor would it be considered notable enough to write an entry on if the person was not already famous. For instance, if Bearcat was --by some incredible change in fortunes-- famous for his literary endeavors, would it be noteworthy to list some old case that resulted in a discharge -- say, a marijuana possession bust, a careless driving charge, that sort of thing? Why don't we open Wikipedia entries on everyone who's discharged on a misdemeanor charge? Millions of people in America have documented convictions and discharges, all of them verifiable. The answer, of course, is that these old allegations are meant to discredit and to smear Marsden. I do not think it belongs in an entry about a political pundit. It is, after all, a discharge, very much a message from the court that this was not an important case. As for the SFU controversy, which should be in the aticle, my version gives it the amount of space it deserves, plus there is a link to the Marsden-Donnelly harassment case in my version, so if people want to read about that stuff, it is on Wikipedia, thanks to the ever-busy Bucketsofg. As for the SFU stuff being too point of view, here's a summary from one of the many, many anti-Gurmant Grewal blogs to which Buckets contributes when he isn't on Wikipedia documenting the lives of Gurmant Grewal and his associates:

CORRECTION: (From The Vancouver Sun, Tuesday, May 25, 2004, page A2) Stories published May 8 and May 13 referred to allegations by an SFU swim coach that he was stalked by former SFU swim team member Rachel Marsden. In fact, the allegations were not proven and SFU declared its investigation into both parties claims of harassment null and void because of flaws in the process. ***** [162].

That's my take on it, too, and that's what I put in the article.

Arthur Ellis 16:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a good explanation of conditional discharges by Mike Bryan on-line:

criminal records -- Canada URL: http://www.cfdp.ca/bryan05.htm

And if anyone's worried about whether a particular journalist's report about the Morgan case is biased, why not just link to the "reasons for sentence" page from the BC court site? It's part of the public record; both sides agreed to the statement of facts:


URL: http://www.provincialcourt.bc.ca/judgments/pc/2004/03/p04_0369.htm R v Marsden - Reasons for Sentence


Coughy 06:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)coughy

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