Well, Wikidemon didn't do his research (no suprise to me -- I've dealt with Wikidemon for some time now, and I can't remember when he did research to help settle a disagreement, which is a bad sign). One of my instant, new heroes, User:Ajschorschiii, does that thing that I like to do: goes to the freakin' sources and actually finds information, then brings it to Wikipedia: "The reference to the Murtagh bombing to a particular Weather cell has a scholarly source. See--Jacobs, R. (1997). The way the wind blew : a history of the Weather Underground. London; New York: Verso, pg. 98" [see the diff and follow the link]. He's right, of course. The reliable sources do show that Weatherman set off a bomb to terrorize the judge. The judge's son, now a Yonkers City Council member, and a responsible adult who can be relied upon to write an article that reflects well-sourced facts about the bombing that terrorized him as a young child, has written an article about the terrorist incident.
But Ajschorschiii's point doesn't go unchallenged: User:Barbiero says it must be "unreliable" because it's only a sentence "in passing" about that particular bombing (diff).
Because the source does not provide a reliable assertion of that. It is a single sentence, in passing, during discussion of a different topic not directly related to the Murtagh Bombing, and Jacobs provides no follow on or evidence for that statement.Let's just call this objection rather difficult to swallow. Wikipedia doesn't have a policy saying that "sources that only mention something in passing are unreliable". Ron Jacobs, a Weatherman sympathizer, concedes that Weatherman did the bombing. So does former Weatherman member [[Cathy Wilkerson]], one of the two survivors of the [[Greenwich Village townhouse explosion]], which occurred when the same terrorist cell essentially blew itself up:
We should not repeat rumours as facts, or give undue weight to statement of rumours as fact, which is what your addition did.
Hey Barbiero, how's that for extended treatment? Robbins himself can't testify: He died when the next bomb he tried to make blew up. Wilkerson survived that explosion to tell the tale.The group, Terry [Robbins] explained briefly, had done an action already, a firebomb that had been thrown at the home of Judge Murtagh, then presiding over the trial of the Panther 21. Judge Murtagh seemed to be following in the belligerent steps of Chicago's Judge Hoffman, who had physically gagged defendant and Panther member Bobby Seale during the Chicago 8 trial in October. In the New York Panther 21 case, Murtagh seemed to take pleasure in summarily dismissing the normal rules of evidence to allow the police to introduce anything they wanted, while repeatedly denying defense motions. He had set up the courtroom with armed police, implying to the jury that he expected n armed attack at any moment. It was, Terry said, a way to prejudice jurors and make them frightened ofthe defendants, none of whom had ever engaged in armed political action.
I assumed the group's firebombing had been done after consultation with and approval by those Panthers that remained out of jail, although I now wonder. The Panthers themselves never did comment on the action publicly. The firebomging had been dangerous because Judge Murtagh's house was guarded by several New York City policemen twenty-four hours a day. The bottle filled with gasoline had broken against the front steps, burned, and gone out. At least the throwers had gotten away.
By then, of course, I was hardly shocked at this action. I had assumed for
weeks that many small groups were being set up to do this kind of action.[...] Terry continued to update me: The New York collective was now planning to follow their first action with several simultaneous ones.
-- Wilkerson, Cathy, Flying Close to the Sun, Seven Stories Press, 2007, pp 324-325
Ajschorschiii then gives a smart reply (diff):
Your bias may have begun to show, in that you have stated that the claim is exceptional, thereby revealing a pre-conceived notion on your part. Exceptional in relation to what? Please state specifically why such a claim is exceptional, and what the "rule" is that this claim "excepts." I think we owe our readers the knowledge that another author--of one of the few books on Weather where former Weather participants were interviewed, and a sympathetic author to Weather, I might add--also has written that the Murtagh bombing was done by Weather, and contains three sentences consistent with that statement. I don't see you enforcing a similar standard to other citations in this article. We need a real and substantial reason to keep this statement out of the article, other than, "It stays out of the article." Or, are you running out of reasons?
If Wikipedia edits depended upon who had the better sourcing, bias problems would have an obvious, direct, simple solution -- provide better sourcing! Unfortunately, it's not that simple: Wikipedia edits actually depend upon whether or not editors will adhere to the best sourcing, even if the best sourcing directs editors away from their personal point of view. So if Ajschorschiii's better sourcing is ever going to actually be reflected in the article, as opposed to Wikidemon's bias, editors involved in the discussion will need to support the NPOV position. Wikipedia needs enough editors who care about NPOV to make NPOV actually work as a policy.
ADDED NOTE: It's important to try to maintain civility in these discussions, something incredibly difficult to do the more you realize that you're dealing with an editor who's bringing bias to the table, and even harder to do when you realize that an editor constantly brings bias to the table and that you are unlikely to deter that editor from doing so no matter what you do or say. Because I expect this post will be read by participants in the discussion, I've rewritten it a bit to try to remove some creeping impoliteness (something not as bad as incivility, but even impoliteness can hurt a discussion). Ajschorschiii's near perfect response to Barbiero and Wikidemon has just a little scratch in it, a slight nick, a tiny imperfection in stating to Barbiero, "your bias may have begun to show". The perfect response would have been something like: "Do you think you might be displaying bias by ..." That amounts to something like a very polite invitation to drop possible bias. If this is one of several discussions involving bias that Ajschorschiii has had with Barbiero, and if it were already clear that Barbiero was biased, then there isn't even a slight imperfection in mentioning possible bias. Overall, it's better to avoid mentioning another party's bias unless it is blatant or evident after you've repeatedly seen it. This kind of patience is something I myself need to work on more (which is why I redacted parts of this blog post).'NOTHER UPDATE: Wikidemon's taken a step back, and agreeing that Ron Jacobs (Weatherman sympathizer that Jacobs is) is an OK source, although he's waivering, Barbiero is setting up conditions that exist nowhere else in Wikipedia for accepting Ajschorschiii's source, Ajschorschiii is patiently, calmly, devastatingly answering objections.
