Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barry Chamish

Barry Chamish

Barry Chamish (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Article was a BLP disaster - claiming the man is a holocaust denier even though the only thing approaching a reliable source on that point, which was a blog, plainly said that he is not. That stayed in the article for a month.

I stubbed it due to many inflammatory assertions, and after some time, no one has bothered to add anything back. At BLPN editors noted that this article has long been a target of BLP vandalism. Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:47, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

• Keep – When one of the first references I find states; “Israel's best known [Yitzhak Rabin] assassination "conspiracist" is the burly and bearded Barry Chamish - Jerusalem Post - ProQuest Archiver - Apr 7, 1997 [1], I’m a little reluctant to !vote for delete. With regards that the item is a BLP disaster, that may be true, but isn’t that a reason to clean-up the piece rather than delete or is the concern that misinformation was present for a month? Sorry to say, any and all articles on Wikipedia are subject to misinformation which we do recognize when we state “…Older articles tend to grow more comprehensive and balanced; newer articles may contain misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism. Awareness of this aids obtaining valid information and avoiding recently added misinformation (see Researching with Wikipedia)”. In other words we have to be more diligent. This however is not valid reason to delete the piece. Finally with regards to stubbing the piece and the persistent vandalism. You are absolutely right in stubbing the article until the information added back follows our current policies that all information be verifiable – reliable – creditable from secondary sources. What I didn’t realize that there were now timeframes on adding back information. Which leaves us with vandalism. I noticed the piece is semi-protected now which should eliminate that problem. All in all I couldn’t figure out if this was a valid AFD nomination or an exercise, either way, clearly a keep for Mr. Chamish ShoesssS ^Talk 16:16, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. -- -- Cirt (talk) 16:30, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
• delete marginal notability, and long-term severe BLP disaster shows we haven't maintained this and are unlikely to going forward. Had someone written a half-decent article I might have opined differently.--Scott Mac 17:04, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
• Keep He has twice been a national Scrabble champion and is notable for this alone, never mind the other stuff. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

We need a source for this claim (it is not mentioned in the source cited). In any case, this is probably the least notable thing in this bio; if Chamish is notable, it is for his Rabin conspiracy theories and other right-wing journalism, and not as a Scrabble player.

• I have done some cleanup and provided more sources such as Former Winnipegger Israeli Scrabble Whiz (the profile is on the right of the two page spread) Colonel Warden (talk) 15:37, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

• Delete - low notability, of local infamy only, blogging scrabble player that we have allowed to be slandered through the project for far too long. Off2riorob (talk) 14:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
• Comment -- I'm unsure yet as to notability, but I will note that Wales is incorrect in asserting that no-one added anything back after he stubbed it: I restored the long list of books Chamish has published. The scrabble bit seems trivial, but he publishes quite a bit -- most of it impossibly nutty (Shimon Peres killed Rabin). In any event I've been familiar with him for many years. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:06, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Israel-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 21:14, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Conspiracy theories-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 21:14, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Paranormal-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 21:14, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 21:14, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
• Keep Scrabble title is notable enough but significant contribution to the Rabin assassination conspiracy theory is much more well known. Wales was bold in cutting up the article, but deleting it for lack of traffic is not the next step for such a well known author. --Zangvill (talk) 02:53, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. Not much of a rationale for deletion, considering the BLP issues have already been handled. I'm kind of surprised to see Jimbo make this nom as it's something I would've expected from most hardline deletionists. -- œ^™ 04:40, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. Significant coverage in reliable sources. Marokwitz (talk) 06:23, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
• Keep - Fairly clearly a public figure worthy of encyclopedic biographical coverage. Copious Google hits on the specific name (112,000). Though the subject may hold controversial views, this is not a valid reason for deletion. Carrite (talk) 19:34, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I add that this is the count of English-language hits; the number of Hebrew language hits would increase the count considerably. I'm going to do a little bit of work on this page, this seems like an interesting person. Carrite (talk) 19:41, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - I've fully revised the article. Admittedly a good deal of this information is from the subject's own website — but the big criticism has been that erroneous or distorted material has dominated and that's no longer a valid concern. One of Chamish's books was reviewed by Daniel Pipes in Middle East Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal, indicating that this is not a person of "local infamy." There is now a framework up for some proper additional biographical writing. This is clearly improvable further by normal editing procedures. Carrite (talk) 22:31, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Apologies to the Colonel, I accidentally mutilated his added source. Will get that back into play momentarily. Carrite (talk) 22:35, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - Ahhh... "Wikipedia False Claims on Barry Chamish as ‘Holocaust Denier,'" (Feb. 26, 2011). Carrite (talk) 23:47, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I would like to move to support but - the tidy up is limited, there is still limited reliable independent coverage and the article will be attacked, the Jews hate him and they will keep at it and slowly slowly he will get slandered and attacked again through en wikipedia. Off2riorob (talk) 00:30, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

All criticism of Chamish has been completely sanitized from the revised article, which is thereby rendered unbalanced... Wiping out all criticism only opens the door for another over-the-top rewrite. The above comment "The Jews hate him" ENTIRELY misses the point that this is a dedicated supporter of Israel who believes he has been maligned as a "holocaust denier" by sloppy editorial work on Wikipedia and a systemic prevention of his correcting of this distortion. That charge comes from the Daniel Pipes criticism (published in a peer-reviewed journal), which has been stricken this afternoon. This seems to have happened before in 2007, see the Talk page... There needs to be a neutral description of that criticism with an article link, which was previously up. Carrite (talk) 01:08, 7 March 2011 (UTC)Edited Carrite (talk) 01:14, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I guess I'm more or less okay with the heavily trimmed Pipes criticism as long as the footnote is there. Carrite (talk) 01:58, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Who is this person who claims the Jews hate Chamish? This is ridiculous and completely OR from riorob. So what does he suggest? Not to support the article because it will get attacked? Good indecisiveness. --Zangvill (talk) 02:05, 7 March 2011 (UTC)