Student wants Brandt Bio Undeleted for a Thesis Citation - Durova says OK, Fortunately others stopped her Options

I don't know how stupid you have to be to allow something like this to happen. They didnt, but you know how they are - they might allow it next time.

Brandt, I suggest your write a letter to whoever about this nonsense. Here it is, before it get oversighted.

Deleted page view request
Resolved

An administrator has agreed to review the draft citation for accuracy. DurovaCharge! 22:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

For about six weeks now I've been in contact with a Harvard student who's writing a thesis on Wikipedia. With the deadline at hand she needs to double check her citations, but one of the pages she was referencing has recently been deleted. Would someone oblige with a temporary undelete for this academic purpose? Please contact me for details. DurovaCharge! 19:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Which page is it? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Daniel Brandt's biography. Used to be a redirect, now it's salted. She just needs it for a couple of hours. DurovaCharge! 19:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I assume it's the same request that Doc Glasgow recently turned down. [29] That user says he's doing research into Wikipedia and that he's an undergraduate at Harvard. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 19:41, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
This is a tough one for me, if it was just about any other page, I wouldn't worry too much about it, but this page being undeleted for even a short period of time could have serious consequences. Ryan Postlethwaite 19:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Could you provide material privately to her? She's authorized me to give out her e-mail to an administrator. It's an @harvard.edu and I've been working with her for long enough that I'm confident this is genuine. DurovaCharge! 19:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thinking about this, she really just needs to verify that the citation is correct. So perhaps you could confer with her without actually disclosing more than a few quoted words or something like that. DurovaCharge! 19:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Why does he need the page to be undeleted exactly? The request didn't make much sense. He says he wants to see one particular diff, but if he already knows what the diff says, why does he need the undeletion? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 19:52, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Also, bear in mind that this is (reportedly) for an undergraduate essay, not an academic paper, so there is no pressing academic issue here. I would urge caution unless the requester explains the request in a way that makes more sense, and also provided the material is not in any way controversial. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 19:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Measure twice, cut once. It's a Harvard thesis not a book report. -- Kendrick7talk 19:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It's standard practice at this level to double check all citations before turning in the final draft. Just making sure everything is correct. DurovaCharge! 20:00, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Standard practice at which level? This is an undergraduate essay. And which citation needs to be checked exactly? If it's a citation that was in the article, he can get that by looking elsewhere for it, or just asking one of us what it was. That doesn't require undeletion. As I said, on the face of it, the request makes little sense. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 20:02, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Slim, it's a Harvard thesis. I spent a summer at Harvard; I know what their expectations are. People have gotten expelled from that university for honestly forgetting to include citations. They don't mess around. And it's not about a citation that was in the article. A diff of the article itself is being cited for analytical study of site dynamics. DurovaCharge! 20:09, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Durova, undergraduate work is pretty much the same the world over. If the student wants to use a diff as a citation, it will be useless because the article is deleted. The diff is not available any more. Even if undeleted then deleted again, the link still won't go anywhere. So the request as stated makes no sense. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 20:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I think others have been right with their firmness on the policy issue. Deleted is in fact, deleted, and you might help by explaining this to the student. As to what she needs, be it for college or high school, Harvard, or East Podunk, that makes no difference to us. It would be a kindness if you could help her understand the citation difficulties. Perhaps you could suggest sources other than Wikipedia? Jd2718 (talk) 20:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not really deleted like Fahrenheit 451 deleted. It's really more like it is in a private collection; so no harm in asking for access to the resource. Even most of Harvard's libraries aren't open to the general public. -- Kendrick7talk 20:23, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I really think someone should contact this user and clarify things. But be careful, the last admin to post deleted edits to someone got desysopped as I recall. Further, this is information about an identifiable individual who disputes the accuracy of it, and believes it to be a privacy violation. Posting it to someone is very likely to upset him. Now, unless we're going in for the "stuff Brandt we hate him anyway" video-game nonsense - that should give at least pause for thought. Does this student really need this? Why? How is deleted, and thus independently unverifiable material of any academic value - I'd take some convincing.--Docg 20:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Speaking as an academic here, I can't imagine any need to cite the actual language of the article. All the student needs to do is indicate in the citation that the page was deleted. Chick Bowen 20:16, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It's simple enough for the student to provide the citation and just let someone say yes or no. I suspect we can work this out. -JodyB talk 20:21, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
(de-indent+e/c) I didn't think Harvard allowed people to cite Wikipedia. But if the person wants to cite the source we cited, surely it's not a major problem for us to find the cite and send it to them?
If it is something in the article that they want then I would tend to refer them on to OTRS. I know that after Everyking, there is a chilling effect against admins providing deleted information. Stifle (talk) 20:22, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

When the subject of the paper is Wikipedia itself, of course Harvard allows students to cite us. DurovaCharge! 20:31, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

OTRS have no more authority here than anyone else. If I were taking the OTRS call, I'd decline it.--Docg 20:23, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

She told me it's not life or death, so let's not ruffle our feathers too much. I doubt she needed the entire page or even the entire diff. Probably just wanted to check the url and a couple of words of text. If anyone's willing to do that much, I'll be back in an hour and can put you in touch. Otherwise let's let it go. Thanks for the responses. DurovaCharge! 20:28, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment: there's a difference between a request from a college undergraduate and a college professor. If this is truly important and moves forward, maybe the student needs to have his/her professor make the request.

Also, isn't it early in the year to be actually writing up a senior thesis? I thought students did the actual writing in the last frantic month or two of their last semester. --A. B. (talk) 20:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

FYI, Harvard's fall semester ends 23 January.[30] -- Kendrick7talk 21:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh for Christ's sake. A student requests a copy of something, certainly possible and reasonable with Special:Undelete, and it this conversation turns to whether or not Wikipedia is cite-able and whether the "really" needs the information and whether its too early to be writing this paper during the school year. The student simply wants to make sure that the information in his / her paper is correct. Provide the damn thing or don't; put the wiki-politics and speculation in the trash where they belong. There's simply no need for over 1000 words about the issue. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:57, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

To respond to a couple of posts, actually she's putting the final touches on it this weekend. That's her deadline. I floated the possibility of whether she could provide further bona fides for this request. She wasn't sure on the spur of the moment how she would do that and she had to head off to the library. The idea of her providing the draft citation to an administrator for factual confirmation seems reasonable. Anyone up for that? DurovaCharge! 21:18, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

That seems perfectly fine, and I'd be happy to verify the student's citation for her. Natalie (talk) 21:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

In response to MZMcBride--the drama in this case has to do with the history of this particular article, and is not surprising. Obviously if it were almost any other it would be an open-and-shut case. Chick Bowen 22:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

FWIW I respect the concerns here and would not have submitted the request unless I were very confident it's legitimate. DurovaCharge! 23:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey: Sun 9th December 2007, 12:10am

You people are usually against secrecy and censorship... but you make an exception when it comes to stuff about Brandt. Hypocrites.

You people are usually against secrecy and censorship... but you make an exception when it comes to stuff about Brandt. Hypocrites.

Hilarious. Why doesn't this "student' just post the request on the Wiki that anyone can edit.

Durova acting in any way for any purported super sekret off-wiki entity as an on-WP agent should have already been laughed away by her super sekret proof used to ban "!!".

even The Kinder Gentler Slimmy smells the bullshit.

This post has been edited by Piperdown: Sun 9th December 2007, 12:35am

I guess she's having adminship withdrawl, and tried to convince herself she still can use sooper sekrit evidence to get what she wants done. Does she not realize she has no credibility now?

I guess she's having adminship withdrawl, and tried to convince herself she still can use sooper sekrit evidence to get what she wants done. Does she not realize she has no credibility now?

its probably a game to elicit a reaction in the "Sleuthing Brandt-Bagely Bogeymen" game.

next, durova will appear off-off Broadway in a production of "Sleuth", with herself playing the Olivier'72 part. let's just hope for the audiences' sake she didn't also write the script.

Interesting.

I sat in on a briefing at MIT last month in which the speaker said that someone at Harvard was doing research on dominance hierarchies in social networking.

I have no way of knowing if this request corresponds to that same research, but the colloquy is clearly indicative of a dominance hierarchy on a prominent social networking site.

I guess she's having adminship withdrawl, and tried to convince herself she still can use sooper sekrit evidence to get what she wants done. Does she not realize she has no credibility now?

Probably more like a case of prima donna withdrawal.

I guess she's having adminship withdrawl, and tried to convince herself she still can use sooper sekrit evidence to get what she wants done. Does she not realize she has no credibility now?

its probably a game to elicit a reaction in the "Sleuthing Brandt-Bagely Bogeymen" game.

next, durova will appear off-off Broadway in a production of "Sleuth", with herself playing the Olivier'72 part. let's just hope for the audiences' sake she didn't also write the script.

Actually, a Durova-written script might be pretty cool. Call me crazy, but I like gigantic implausible conspiracy theories.

I guess she's having adminship withdrawl, and tried to convince herself she still can use sooper sekrit evidence to get what she wants done. Does she not realize she has no credibility now?

its probably a game to elicit a reaction in the "Sleuthing Brandt-Bagely Bogeymen" game.

next, durova will appear off-off Broadway in a production of "Sleuth", with herself playing the Olivier'72 part. let's just hope for the audiences' sake she didn't also write the script.

Actually, a Durova-written script might be pretty cool. Call me crazy, but I like gigantic implausible conspiracy theories.

dont give her false hope, her second career as WP Sleuth is just going so much better than the first one.

better being a relative term. 15 minutes of fame and all that.

Interesting.

I sat in on a briefing at MIT last month in which the speaker said that someone at Harvard was doing research on dominance hierarchies in social networking.

I have no way of knowing if this request corresponds to that same research, but the colloquy is clearly indicative of a dominance hierarchy on a prominent social networking site.

you'd think then that this person has already edited WP as "research". kind of like what hedge fund managers do.

perhaps they got banned and can't edit any more. so the request has to come through Durova The Magnificent.

Please Godking Jimbo, don't ever make Durova go away. The entertainment is priceless !! (2 exclamations for Mr Bang Bang as the El Reg called him).

The Original SuperWPSleuth Slimmy is correct about Durova's super sekret Daniel Brandt diff requester.

It's User:Pbui, and as Slim's link shows, was already turned down on the same request earlier.

I assume Pbui was also contacted that this might raise DB's ire. There is an edit to his/her userpage to remove some peronsally identifiable information that Pbui volunteered there.

If I was DB, you're damn right it would raise my ire.

If I was Everyking, it would raise holy hell. He got de-opped for even mentioned that he might look at a deleted diff for someone.

WP is now going to give a student sleuth a super sekret peek to a DB article diff.

While you're at it, WP, restore all those supersekret Jayjg/SV oversight diffs, there are probably some more student sleuths who would be interested in them.

Or the people who already have the database dumps could do it for them.

I smell another Cade article cooking.

My guess would be that whoever this "student" is, he's probably missing the whole point of the controversy. We've obviously covered this plenty around here, but the content of the article in itself, barring vandalism, wasn't really the main issue. The issue was that you can't bar vandalism on WP, and that because most of Brandt's career predated the internet, Wikipedia is incapable of writing a balanced biography of him. Moreover, because Wikipedia hates him, they can't be relied on to determine his "notability" in a fair and accurate manner, either.

The fact that this person wants to "see" the content of the article suggests that he's missing those points. I could be wrong, I suppose, but I doubt it.

Anyway, not everyone here on WR is especially against censorship or secrecy. Speaking for myself, if those things are used to protect personal privacy, it's not always so bad... but if it's used to facilitate powerful people preying unfairly on not-so-powerful people, even if they're just users on some website or other, then sure, that's almost always bad.

And of course, if it's used by evil Japanese supervillains to prevent really good egg salad recipes from being disseminated to the general public, then that's just terrible!

The fact that this person wants to "see" the content of the article suggests that he's missing those points. I could be wrong, I suppose, but I doubt it.

Exactly. If something was online, and it was finally taken offline, then what's the point in your freaking paper to get a sample of it (and publish it and have it in your g-damned thesis). Which is probably going to be viewable online, obviating the deletion. Or if you are only "citing it" then you shouldn't as it isn't a reference anymore.

WHATis wrong with these people anyways? (!!!!!)

Probably more like a case of prima donna withdrawal.

Xactly. That was what the Angela AFD was about. That's what this is about (giving out any sort of advice, even if completely torqued). And also what her hanging out and giving advisory on any freaking thing under the sun on the wiki.

I guess she's having adminship withdrawl, and tried to convince herself she still can use sooper sekrit evidence to get what she wants done. Does she not realize she has no credibility now?

One of the clearest signs of being crazy is not knowing that you are crazy. If you have even an inkling that you might be "off", vestiges of sanity remain to help you out.

She thinks everything is JUST FINE, it was all a MISTAKE, she was TREATED UNFAIRLY with a DOUBLE STANDARD and soon everyone will come to their SENSES.


Ergo the un-funny sock jokes on ANI. About which....I've never seen anything so completely lacking in gravitas, not to mention seriousness, in a moment which screams for it. She's an international figure for the corruption of Wikipedia, and she's still in denial.

Jimbo is using her as an bad example to others. In writing. On the internet. God.

I hope she has some friends who are aware of this and can talk to her. She's quite off balance.

You people are usually against secrecy and censorship... but you make an exception when it comes to stuff about Brandt. Hypocrites.

Bullshit. Brandt's page never belonged there, and he was tortured for ages about it. Now its' off. Deleted does not equal "can be replaced online at whim". Sorry.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey: Sun 9th December 2007, 3:44am

You people are usually against secrecy and censorship... but you make an exception when it comes to stuff about Brandt. Hypocrites.

When have I argued for free speech?

I like censorship. But not any censorship... censorship for the
furtherance of humanist goals such as the protection of people's
privacy and reputation.

Oh, and cheers to Ms. SV for supporting Brandt's privacy or
whatever....


This post has been edited by AB: Sun 9th December 2007, 5:34am

The problem was solved rationally. Admin Natalie_Erin contacted me about this. I said that I had all 2600+ versions of my bio, and if the Harvard student wished to ask me for some specific records, then if I determined that the student's request was non-privacy invasive, I could help the student. Natalie_Erin relayed this to the student. My offer to assist was declined on the grounds that the student was worried that I might hivemind her if she revealed contact information to me. The student decided to submit her project without the extra information.

The student learned something about privacy after all!

My offer to assist was declined on the grounds that the student was worried that I might hivemind her if she revealed contact information to me.

This is what free e-mail addresses, proxies,
and anonymous re-mailers are for.

And by this I mean privacy in general....


This post has been edited by AB: Sun 9th December 2007, 9:08am

What kind of Harvard professor allows Wikipedia to be cited?

I call bullspit. Durova is lying, as part of her mad delusions. I'm not kidding or exaggerating, this is all a farce. She's probably frothing at the mouth while posting to that thread, eyes bulging, hair all a-tangle.

The problem was solved rationally. Admin Natalie_Erin contacted me about this. I said that I had all 2600+ versions of my bio, and if the Harvard student wished to ask me for some specific records, then if I determined that the student's request was non-privacy invasive, I could help the student. Natalie_Erin relayed this to the student. My offer to assist was declined on the grounds that the student was worried that I might hivemind her if she revealed contact information to me. The student decided to submit her project without the extra information.

The student learned something about privacy after all!

This was amazingly mature and broadminded of you, Daniel, and nicer than she deserved. What a little coward she is. If that's her attitude towards you (that you are a "mad people publisher" and will de facto put her name on hivemind) then this isn't someone that you want to have looking at those pictures anyways. She sounds slanted in the Wikipedia direction of opinion.

Durova is lying, as part of her mad delusions. I'm not kidding or exaggerating, this is all a farce. She's probably frothing at the mouth while posting to that thread, eyes bulging, hair all a-tangle.

This reveals that she never had any intention to help Daniel. It was all about (probably) getting her name off Daniel's site - but now that that failed (because she didn't hold up her end of the bargain) she's trying to "ride" on the "fame" of "being the admin so clever and powerful that she AFD'd the Brandt and Finklestein bios".

Also the "but Slim........ this is HARVARD", could well have been the words, "but Slim........ this is GLAMOUROUS".

Durova is a glamour junkie. Unfortunately she'd od'ed and is making a clown out of herself. Not only this but her "sockpuppet jokes" on the ANI. She's quite ill.

Actually, a Durova-written script might be pretty cool. Call me crazy, but I like gigantic implausible conspiracy theories.

Well she was originally a film major at USC. She's just moved the drama to Wikipedia, and in most inappropriate fashion.

What kind of Harvard professor allows Wikipedia to be cited?

I call bullspit. Durova is lying, as part of her mad delusions. I'm not kidding or exaggerating, this is all a farce. She's probably frothing at the mouth while posting to that thread, eyes bulging, hair all a-tangle.

I think the person is researching Wikipedia, which would obviously mean that Wikipedia would need to be cited.

We can't see what happens behind another person's computer
screen. Or what happens in their heads, for that matter.

Natalie_Erin said that the student had a Harvard email, and was google-able based on that. The student apparently was studying the 14 AfDs on my article, in an effort to determine something about behavior on Wikipedia. The student was interested in getting versions of the bio as of certain dates as a baseline for her report. Obviously the student should have approached me first instead of asking Durova.