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This page has been mentioned by multiple media organizations: Ashe Schow (November 25, 2015). "Wikipedia founder advocates for updating policies following 'The Hunting Ground' controversy". Washington Examiner. Retrieved February 8, 2020. Another editor, whose username is BullRangifer, suggested Wikipedia not become "a kangaroo court or lynching" by rushing to ban accounts who break COI. BullRangifer suggested following seven steps to determine whether "The Hunting Ground" crew member should be banned and whether his edits should be removed. Some of the steps included how he handled questions related to his edits and whether he stuck to discussion pages to ask for edits rather than making them himself. Marcus Gilmer (October 3, 2018). "Wikipedia demotes Breitbart to fake news". Mashable. Retrieved October 5, 2018. Support. If anything, it's even more unreliable than the Daily Mail, as they at least use trained journalists, whereas Breitbart is a fringe propaganda organization which lets its extreme partisan bias get in the way of how it reports things, and whether it does so, just as Fox News does. It too should be deprecated, but let's start with Breitbart (and InfoWars). — BullRangifer 17:51, 8 September 2018 (UTC) Alexander Hall (August 13, 2020). "Report: Wikipedia Editors Censoring Evidence Supporting Michael Flynn". NewsBusters. Retrieved August 15, 2020. Liberal user Valjean responded by condemning this revelation as 'conspiracy theories' and 'part of a cover-up,' even 'when it comes from the now-sitting government of the USA.' Valjean specified that 'Nothing coming from Trump's Justice Department, FBI, CIA, anything, can be trusted.' Breitbart alleged that Valjean, formerly under the name 'BullRangifer' has been 'previously involved in slanting articles about the Russia investigation.' Raymond Sturman (October 23, 2024). "Top 5 Editing Conflicts in Wikipedia Pages on Religion". World Religion News. Retrieved October 24, 2024. Located on the Catholic Church Wikipedia talk page, the screenshot below details a recent discussion of the tension between the Roman Catholic Church and other branches of Catholicism. Editor 'Valjean' is protesting that the word 'Roman' has been removed from the title, arguing that there are other branches of Catholicism, while the Roman Catholic Church says it is the real Catholic Church.

• Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias
• How to find word count
• List of lint errors

Draft categories

Hey, I did not know about {{Draft categories}}. I saw it in your draft article. Thanks for teaching me something new. Viriditas (talk) 22:37, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Det var så lidt! Did you notice my current trials and tribulations at MfD? It sucks.

I don't know where I picked up that code, but like most of what I do here (regarding HTML, templates, shortcuts, rule interpretations, etc.), I learn from other editors. I used to just use nowiki all the time. I feel privileged to even work in the same place as you. There are so many intelligent, talented, wise, and kind people here. As an older retired aspie-light who is largely physically inactive (and right now recovering from surgery), I treasure that.

My passive nature is like my long-lived father (100) and grandfather (101). They were both very intellectual, academic types. The whole family is college educated. Not much physical exertion (I am not recommending that), yet they lived long. They kept mentally very active by studying, writing, researching, and preaching.

I'm a PK and MK, now atheist. My grandfather (b. 1880), who went to Korea in about 1908 as a missionary, left Korea before WW2 and went back to college to get his degree, which didn't exist in his young days. The local Koreans in Southern California often reminded him he needed to go back and visit Korea, even promising him they would pay his trip when he turned 100. Well, he did that. After a couple days in Korea, the language was coming back so good that he did a tour of churches and preached in Korean. My father followed in his footsteps as a missionary there. Unfortunately, I was only 6 years old when we left there and have forgotten what I knew. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:03, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

I hear you. If the locus of the dispute is poor sourcing, one way to temporarily resolve this is to cut everything out of the draft that others find to be poorly sourced and put it in a file on your desktop. Another thing to consider is to just wave the white flag and request deletion of the draft and work offline. I've been experimenting with offline editing as of late, and I really enjoy it. I don't know if you use macOS, Linux, or Windows, but there are solutions for each one. Lately, I've been using split editor screen in Visual Studio Code (VS Code) with the Wikitext extension. I find it far more immersive and conducive to writing. And with the split editor screen, you can work on two different sections of the same document at the same time. You can also create different profiles for different article topics. The other neat thing about working in VS Code is that you can do a lot of things with your content, more so if you are drawing on multiple documents and need to analyze the material. In the example of your draft, this could come in handy by allowing you to work with two versions at the same time, a clean reliable version and the original. Viriditas (talk) 00:24, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Responding directly to itemised concerns is what I have often done, but on a smaller scale. This is a comprehensive view of the topic. Because the topic is so sensational, it lends itself to speculation and sensation, much of which is not worth including. It has been covered in every imaginable manner in every type of source, good, bad, and ugly. We stick to the better end of the spectrum.

I fully believe this: "If I go looking for info, and Wikipedia doesn't have it, then Wikipedia has failed." (Baseball Bugs) I fully believe that. Since understanding this type of topic literally hangs on small details that can tip the understanding of the topic 180 degrees, it behooves us to include small details when they are crucial to covering the necessary nuances. They should resolve allegations, clear up confusion, and not leave any blind spots that then lend themselves to creating more conspiracy theories. We should provide the information that completely debunks conspiracy theories. When there is so much good coverage, it can be done.

Regarding sourcing, there are very few RS on the topic that I have not used. I have a list of them. Is using every single RS absolutely necessary? Of course not, but in my aspie-lite pedantic fever dreams, I love to be thorough, know everything about a topic, and provide most of it to readers so they don't feel Wikipedia has failed them.

I know our articles don't always have to do that, but just like Encyclopedia Britannica had short summary articles with 2-3 paragraphs and long articles covering several pages that were full of extreme detail that left nothing out, I tend to favor the latter approach because "we are not paper".

If we don't rid ourselves of the old, limited, pre-digital mentality, we will never live up to Wikipedia's full potential as a different encyclopedia that is in a totally different league than any previous and limited encyclopedia. It is a shame to not provide what good sources have said by just providing a simple comic book version with only basic and limited coverage. That's wrong.

I use ordinary mainstream RS freely, and a few "generally unreliable" (GU) sources on a case-by-case basis, mostly to document the existence of specific points. It appears I use more than I do. I use Youtube videos, and they are initially rated GU, but when they are from official RS, they adopt that sources rating and are no longer GU, so they should not be counted about the GU sources.

Stykkyy accused me of using deprecated sources, but that's a misunderstanding. I don't use a single one, even though it is allowed to use deprecated and blacklisted sources in some extreme cases. That is not necessary here.

I do use some GU sources among the mass of fully reliable sources. I use those GU sources carefully, but some may disagree, and I will certainly explain why I felt that my case-by-case use is justifiable. If I can't defend it, I won't keep it. Such sources are allowed careful use for specific purposes. Have I maybe crossed a line in some cases? Maybe, and I am willing to revise or delete unnecessary content and sourcing on that basis. This is a standard editing problem not resolved by banning creation of an article.

I have always listened closely to criticism and suggestions, and I usually adopt the suggestions in some form, resulting in improved content. Isn't that the collaborative way it should be done here? What I will not do is make changes based on broad, non-specific, with no specific examples provided, false accusations, poor reading comprehension, and misunderstandings of our PAG. OTOH, experienced editors who have a clue find me easy to convince.

So I welcome specific criticism from anyone. Just let them contact me in a non-adversarial manner, provide exact quotes, name the issue, and I will examine it and gladly revise it. That's what I consider help, and not angry threats. (Threatening is not collaboration or collegial.) I welcome such help. I love to work together with others.

@Viriditas: if you share the belief of others that the topic is notable, I would really love it if you would use some of your time on this. No obligations. Please spot the problems. At the MfD, I wrote: I promise not to "go live" with this ever again without seeking review, advice, and approval from several other experienced editors who agree it's good enough for publication. You are a super editor whom I fully trust and highly respect. We are both among the old timers here. A collaboration would be great. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:11, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

I use Windows and Firefox. If I'm forced to do so, I'll have to check out your suggestion, but it should not be necessary to do this off-line. The disadvantage is the difficulty of not working collaboratively with others. I'd be back to working alone, make little improvement or progress, and therein lies the problem. I need other eyes who spot the problems.

Working on a notable topic like this in user space is specifically allowed. It is not indexed by search engines, others can easily help, and as long as there are no BLP violations that cannot be fixed, it's a violation of the spirit of Wikipedia to ban such work which is normally allowed. All these essentially "I don't like it" complaints are a spot on the integrity of the project. That type of complaint, couched in wikilawyering, poisoning the well, bogus accusations, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith, is not allowed in deletion discussions, but in this MfD it's the main course being served and consumed. Someone needs to warn them for such personal attacks and close the process down. If I accused an experienced editor of lacking competence I'd be blocked. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:11, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Look at this from an outcome POV for just a moment: the draft will be kept or deleted; and you may face future sanctions or not. My initial comment up above was an attempt to remind you that you still have autonomy and options. In other words, you can take action right now. That's all. There is this relentless push and pull on what you are trying to achieve. You want to go in one direction, and someone or something is trying to get you to go in another. It may not seem obvious, but you can adjust for this by changing your trajectory. Trust me, I understand what is going on. I ran into the same thing while trying to write about the Arizona town of Canyon Diablo. I discovered, quite to my surprise, that the literature had been contaminated by a single author, Gladwell Richardson, and his nonsense had in turn infected dozens of other sources, even making its way into the official state of Arizona history books. This meant that I had to disentangle the knotted threads somehow, but it became a huge task. So I understand what you are dealing with here. Viriditas (talk) 10:02, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I have considered other options. One is to alter the scope of the article. The only reason the pee tape is of serious interest is because of the blackmail and national security implications, and many excellent sources and people deal with that. They believe that Trump is being blackmailed, and that partially explains his subservience (their word) to Putin.

The two topics are closely connected, leading to its current and logical scope, but that creates a huge article, which in itself should not be a problem, but some editors place more weight on article length than the nature of the topic. I like to do the topic justice and let RS steer length and coverage, rather than editorial feelings of what some pre-digital editors think a proper article should look like: short, not very many pages, no nitty gritty detail, only a summary, no opinions, etc.

So separating them to some degree is an option. The kompromat section is large and could be greatly reduced and used in a separate article at some other time. I think that's one good place to start. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 13:55, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

I can only share what I'm dealing with by way of comparison: User:Viriditas/sandbox47, User:Viriditas/sandbox52, and the main talk page where I'm still trying to square the circle: User talk:Viriditas/sandbox47. Two issues that have me perplexed right now is 1) why haven't any of the more modern reliable sources cited the account of Will C. Barnes, and two, why haven't they accessed the primary sources of the court case, which are available to scholars? I'm sure you have also been hung up by similar questions about your sources. One thing that helped me get to this stage in the draft process was to assume that everything was false first, and then to attempt to find the best sources that agree upon the basic facts, giving me a baseline to work with. This has helped me greatly, and it may be an approach that might also interest you. For this reason, I eliminated any overt unreliable source, even one that was partly unreliable, at the start. You should consider doing this as well. The honest truth is that my current draft is about 90% complete. This means I could go live right now, but I choose not to, because dotting the i's and crossing the t's is important to me. Viriditas (talk) 23:31, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

We have some guests now, so I'll get back to you later and examine this issue. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:58, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

No worries. To summarize my experimental approach with the Canyon Diablo train robbery topic: I provisionally reject claims until they are supported by converging, independent evidence. This still presents a problem for some of my sources like Barnes and the court cases, as most sources don't cover it. So I am still in a pickle, but I managed to work my way out of the original problem such that only 10% is left to fix. So this process is necessary, but insufficient, as there is still an element of uncertainty in the sources, a strong element in fact, and this is paralyzing to some extent. I'm still looking for disconfirming evidence. Viriditas (talk) 00:32, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

@Viriditas: Okay, guests are gone. Now back to your issue. I'm not sure what the key factor here is, but let me see if I can get close. Do you have an issue with a fact that is important, but not well described in good secondary sources, IOW somewhat ignored, but easily documented in primary sources like court documents? If it's not a potentially borderline BLP sensitive matter, then I'd tend to think we should be allowed to use primary sources without a nonexistent secondary source, because documenting reality is far more important than leaving a hole in our knowledge here because of a rule that should have exceptions. Am I even close? I have such a situation. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:55, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

I was just providing you an example of what I'm dealing with, in the hopes that you could apply it to your own struggle. I do think you should start clean, basing the foundation of your article only on reliable secondary sources, if at all possible. Viriditas (talk) 09:19, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

I totally agree, and I want others involved in that effort. Working alone suits me fine with my aspie tendencies, but it's not ideal for Wikipedia.

The situation with primary sources I mention is related to an important situation where IAR would apply, IMHO. If leaving out what a primary source says, only because of our rules, damages an article by leaving a hole which leaves a false narrative, IAR should be invoked. The fact from the primary source should be allowed, so the article does not push a false narrative on our readers. Accuracy is paramount, no matter how you get there. Inaccuracy in the service of liars and poor information should not be allowed. When I say "primary source" here, I'm referring to impeccable legal stuff. When a judge speaks about the topic, we should listen, and our rules should not prevent such mention. (Of course, BLP and its WP:PUBLICFIGURE still apply!) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:30, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

The way I usually work with primary sources is that they must be uncontroversial to begin with. If there is any controversy at all surrounding the material, they must be prefaced by secondaries. Viriditas (talk) 01:32, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

That is certainly the safest way to do it, and that's been my practice too. I provide the primary source as a service to readers who have read the secondary source that mentions the primary source.

My idea above would need to be applied on a case-by-case basis, as merely being "controversial" should not automatically prevent the provision of crucial information (only found in a primary source) that, for example, would prevent an article of ours from pushing a false conspiracy theory. Such theories often root themselves in a small information hole, where the lacking true fact would debunk the conspiracy theory.

It would really violate ethical norms to allow the prioritising of a rule when doing so degrades an article. That's exactly what the IAR policy is for.

I can share the situation with you off-line, if you don't mind. I'll email it to you, and you promise not to share it with anyone. Okay? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:40, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

It's not necessary. I just don't think IAR has a role to play when we are talking about controversial articles. The burden of proof and the necessity of rules takes precedence. IAR is helpful when dealing with certain bureaucratic tendencies, but in terms of content, it isn't really applicable. Viriditas (talk) 02:27, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Update: I wanted to share: the new Firefox browser (since ver 149) now has split view (which I mentioned up above in relation to VS Code). This means you can now edit two pages side by side without having to open separate browser windows. You can also restore closed split view windows with "Open previous windows and tabs", which is probably the coolest part, as you don't have to keep recreating them. Viriditas (talk) 01:52, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

That sounds cool. I'll have to check it out. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:09, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Email?

Hi Valjean.

I’ve received a few notifications that you sent me an email, but none have been received.

- SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:08, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe:, that's really odd. I did send one message and received no notification that you had received it. I then sent a couple tests and received notifications that you had received them. I need to explain something that you have misunderstood, and I can't do that at the MfD, as that is considered bludgeoning, and doing it at your talk page might be considered inappropriate. Yet, the misunderstanding is serious and poisons the well against me at the MfD. Please try sending yourself an email. Let me know if that works. Then I'll test again. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:13, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi.

I have received one email from you. I have read it, and I understand, thank you.

I don’t think the system will give you a notification that I received an email. All the system knows is whether the email was sent, and I suppose, whether a bounce notification was received.

- SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:57, 14 May 2026 (UTC)