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If you are looking for the old talk to this article, please note that it contained too many unsourced allegations and violations of the Wikipedia biographies of living persons policy to be undeleted. Chick Bowen 18:35, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If this exists then what is the problem with adding the criminal harassment charge to this article? This is one of the sources. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 04:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There would be two problems with adding that material to the article. First, the source you have provided is a primary source. Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Well_known_public_figures specifically states that if controversial information "is not documented by reliable third-party sources, leave it out", and further advises editors to

Exert great care in using material from primary sources. Do not use, for example, public records that include personal details--such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses--or trial transcripts and other court records or public documents, unless a reliable secondary source has already cited them.

Unless the claim above is supported by a third-party reliable source, it should not be included in the article. Furthermore, even if adequately sourced, there would be a more subtle problem with including the above material in the article at the present time: both WP:BLP and WP:NPOV mandate that biographies of living persons be written in a fair and balanced manner. This necessarily implies that these articles cannot contain excessive amounts of criticism -- negative material must not be allowed to become disproportionate in quantity to the remainder of the article. Exceptions, obviously, are made for people only notable for negative events, such as serious criminals. As Rachel Marsden is NOT such a person, her Wikipedia biography cannot be treated as such. If we were to add the material above to the article, without expanding the content favorable to Rachel Marsden, I am concerned that we might throw the article out of balance. It's worth observing that almost all of the previous revisions of this article remain deleted because they were so severely imbalanced as to constitute a serious WP:BLP violation. If readers want to know all the dirt on Rachel Marsden, they can read the article in Salon.com -- Wikipedia is held to a higher editorial standard. John254 05:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To respond to the specific example given, Svend_Robinson#Theft_conviction is placed in the larger context of an article which includes far more information favorable to Svend Robinson than our relatively short article on Rachel Marsden does. Moreover, the negative material is supported by references to third party reliable sources, namely, [1] and [2] -- not original court documents. John254 05:32, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Third Party Sources

I haven't actually looked at any of these to be honest, I am just looking at a copy of the old article at archive.org. However, the above appeared to have been supported by the following:

• Rod Mickleburgh, “B.C. woman faces charge of harassment: ex-SFU student who accused swim coach now suspected of stalking busineman,” Globe & Mail, Nov 22, 2002.
• http://web.archive.org/web/20060526202300/http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/TechNews/TechAtHome/2005/01/31/915660-sun.html ^{[dead link]}

If someone were to verify the above, could we add it? In terms of positive information, we can add what the judge said about here being intelligent and a model student no? Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 05:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An observation made by a judge in a criminal court with respect to a defendant coming before him is hardly high praise. We're going to have to do a little better than that if we want to expand the favorable portion of the article. John254 05:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a pretty minor charge and not particularly important to her career. Just because there's "dirt" available on someone doesn't mean you have to put it in a Wikipedia bio. This stuff happened before she became a pundit. There's nothing here about her newspaper column writing. Maybe someone can add that she wrote for the National Post and the Toronto Sun, Mike Bate (talk) 01:38, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I said in my close of the deletion review for this article, a comprehensive biography of Ms. Marsden is in itself a violation of the undue weight clause, since she is a marginally notable figure. Please limit this article to genuinely major events only. Administrators, please enforce this limitation. As it stems from the deletion review, the limitation should be considered a condition of the article's existing at all. Chick Bowen 02:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but this is the first time I've heard of NPOV applying across articles rather than within. Could you please provide another example, or a centralised discussion of some sort with support for that view? Relata refero (talk) 07:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is applying within the article in this case. For a marginally notable figure, an article should concentrate on what makes that person notable. This is a perfectly standard interpretation of NPOV. Chick Bowen 19:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't disagree with your general point but I'm surprised that you read that from WP:UNDUE. --JGGardiner (talk) 21:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, this isn't a standard interpretation of WP:NPOV at all. We usually interpret NPOV to mean that the article should reflect the distribution of coverage in reliable secondary sources. Can you point me to a discussion about marginally notable figures that substantiates your point of view. (Which is, I should addan unhelpful approach here, as this person seems notable mainly as a lightning rod for criticism.) Relata refero (talk) 06:43, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry but this is ridiculous. Marsden is highly notable. We've had a lot of good material. Like Kent Hovind, if the person's notability is highly negative, that's life. Followup, and the fact that we now have no Wikipedia article that mentions her later harassement issues is simply off the wall. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, now I'm even more annoyed. Reading the DRV it looks like you closed it where there was a clear consensus to have an article about her and adding your own signing statement that had no basis in the DRV discussion. Explain to me why I shouldn't ignore it and start systematically reincorporating info from the most recently deleted version? JoshuaZ (talk) 04:35, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would think harassment and stalking are major events, as reported in the news. Five articles about this in the last month. If the article does not say what she is known for, then it has undue weight going the other way. –Pomte 00:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't necessarily agree that this is what she is known for. I happen to think she is best known for being a Canadian columnist that is an American Republican party enthusiast. I tried adding this prior to the deletion and restore of the article but it had been reverted without an explanation. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 05:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

She seems to me to be well known for both issues. If I had to summarize her I call her a Canadian columnist known for supporting the neoconservative wing of the American Republican party and know for her past issues related to stalking and harassement. JoshuaZ (talk) 14:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hope my edits are OK. I want to include the Dennis Miller Show material and put both the Salon and Simon Fraser piece in context. The Salon piece can hardly be seen as objective, and the Simon Fraser article was written by a prof at the very university where the harassment case happened. These facts should be kept in mind. Kurt. Kurt Turkulney (talk) 15:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why the Salon piece is assumed to be any more non-objective than anything else. There are several articles available about Simon Fraser, so pick another one if concerned. Relata refero (talk)

Well, folks, let's go to Arbcomm. This is getting way out of hand again. Mike Bate (talk) 16:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]