Talk:Simon Fraser University 1997 harassment controversy

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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 is also subject to special scrutiny in this regard. An Arbitration Committee case remedy (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden#Remedies #2) authorizes any editor to stub the article if it violates Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Admins are also encouraged to be especially willing to delete articles mentioning one of the people involved in this controversy. However both prior speedy deletions have been overturned, so stubbing and seeking consensus for deletion might be advisable.

This page was previously nominated for deletion. Please see prior discussion(s) before even considering re-nomination: Speedy delete at original title of Marsden-Donnelly harassment case, log November 15, 2006. Overturned by deletion review November 23, 2006 and listed at AFD Keep, in First AFD November 29, 2006 Speedy delete log December 1, 2006 No consensus, so list at AFD by deletion review with consensus to stop using the original title February 3, 2007 Keep in Second AFD February 8, 2007

Contents 1 arrangement 2 deletion? 3 Talk pages 4 Deletion Review 5 Deletion Review Close

[edit] arrangement

Obsolete talk material containing negative accusations about living people removed per WP:BLP. diff

[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)

[edit] Deletion Review

FYI, this article is currently under Deletion Review: Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Marsden-Donnelly_harassment_case. Kla'quot 01:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion Review Close

The deletion review close included 1) relisting at AFD and 2) determining that the article should not be at the old title. This specific new title "Simon Fraser University 1997 harassment controversy" is not required. The cutting down that I did is an editorial decision, but it is one that I believe will help the article adhere to WP:BLP and not create undue weight in violation of WP:NPOV. I encourage editors to look for further ways to remove biographical content from this article while focusing it primarily on the encyclopedic aspects of the case, which I believe is primarily the impact on the university. (Sourcing offered in deletion review for the claim that it did have a wider impact on other universities was unconvincing. I did not pay to read the Phi Delta Kappan article, but it was written in 1997 so can't have been a historical retrospective, and other sources I found were merely expecting such impact, as opposed to documenting it.) GRBerry 07:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Not having seen it closing the DRV, this didn't affect the close, and is being offered as an editorial opinion. But this document is closer to my vision for the page than the end of November version that I cut down was. The vision behind cutting down the article was to try and find a path off the cycle of speedy deletion, deletion review, AFD keep. With an example to point at, I can now illustrate that vision better. Specifically:

1. It is focused on the institutional significance of the controversy, not the people in the controversy or the salacious details thereof. Remember that we are an encyclopedia, and if the controversy is notable we should focus on encyclopedic aspects of the case. Wikipedia is more likely to have a viable and enduring article if we treat this as a sub-article of History of Simon Fraser University than as a sub article of the then student's biography.
2. It spends time disussing and analyzing the aftermath. This is one of the weaknesses of this article to date; there is not enough of that coverage in our article.
3. It doesn't even use the names of the principals in discussing the case, which I considered, but found was unimplementable in a quick hatchet job. This would be unusual here, and is not required, but it would be a big help in avoiding WP:BLP issues. It is also why I intentionally unlinked RM from the article, despite the general rule of building the web.

GRBerry 20:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

• • I see no precedent for this. The CAUT paper is certainly a good guideline, but we should refrain from creating ad-hoc legislation for this case that is not in keeping with other scandal articles. ~ trialsanderrors 07:38, 5 February 2007 (UTC)