Talk:Binyam Ahmed Mohammad

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 Definition an Ethiopian who was held in secret CIA custody, and later faced charges before a Guantanamo military commission. [d] [e]
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 Workgroup categories Law and Military [Please add or review categories]
 Subgroup category:  Intelligence
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NOTICE, please do not remove from top of page.
This article includes some passage previously published on the Wikipedia. But I was the sole author of that material there. So no "from wikipedia" tag is necessary.
Check the history of edits to see who inserted this notice.

Very q[uestionable if this is a notable or accurate article.

This is a rambling narrative about an individual. I have read several times and have yet to figure out:

  • He "was" held. Some charges have been dropped. I cannot decipher his current status and am not going to go dig up the references myself.
  • The section on CSRT has absolutely zero connection to this individual. If this is an article about the individual, write about the individual.
  • I am, frankly, shocked that anyone would put in a image not of the individual at all. On that, I am making an Editor ruling and removing it.
  • There is no reason to use text boxes to highlight what is a quote. It would be appropriate to summarize, and link to the actual document, or even to put it in a subpage. The reader should not have to wade through assorted graphic emphases, irrelevant and misleading pictures, and then get to the end of the article and not know what happened to the subject. "Was" suggests he isn't in Guantanamo, but I haven't a clue where he is now.
  • Why are there two separate Guardian citations about his torture? Is it not possible to make a clear statement, or does it seem more damning with more citations?

This article, in my opinion, does not meet minimal standards of clear writing, neutrality, accuracy, or notability. I recommend it be drastically improved or removed.

Howard C. Berkowitz 05:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I am sorry you don't like it.
Your comments -- they seem to suggest your patience is exhausted. I hope that is not true. Because I don't understand some of your comments, and would appreciate it if you made an attempt to explain in a way I can understand.
You wrote: "The section on CSRT has absolutely zero connection to this individual."
  • Well, he had a CSR Tribunal convened to confirm his enemy combatant status...
  • And the CSR Tribunal is a brand new, unprecedented, and highly controversial procedure...
  • I thought a couple of paragraphs of background would be helpful. A couple of days ago, on the forums, didn't you and Martin encourage me to include more background, more synthesis, and less sticking to the facts? Am I missing something? Aren't these two paragraphs of background an instance of the kind of sythesis you encouraged me to include?
  • Now you are the editor -- the subject field expert -- you get to over-rule us authors. If, in your judgment, a contribution an author like me has made is flawed, you get to insist it be struck, or rewritten, until you are satisfied. When us authors sign up here we are expected to be gracious about accepting direction from editors. And I have every intention to be gracious about accepting direction. I believe I have been gracious so far.
  • I believe it is within the bounds I signed up for me to suggest to you that you have an obligation, in return, about how you address authors.
Howard, you wrote: "Is it not possible to make a clear statement, or does it seem more damning with more citations?"
I am sure I have assured you, multiple times, that I do my best to write my contributions as neutrally as possible. Howard, when I read comments like the one above, I see extremely broad hints that you believe my writing is intellectually dishonest. If this is not what you mean, is it possible you could be more careful in your comments?
For what it is worth, I hate intellectual dishonesty. And I find the hints directed my way that my honesty is in question extremely unpleasant.
Howard, I am going to remind you that we are all volunteers here. I am not your employee. I am not a student who depends on you for a mark. The structure here is that there is a hierarchy separating editors from authors. I accept that. But us authors are volunteers who can only be expected to contribute so long as we feel good about how we are treated. We are volunteers who can leave at any time. We don't sacrifice a grade, or holiday pay, or a letter of reference, if we leave.
Howard, I am going to suggest to you that, even if you thought I was hopelessly dishonest, it is a mistake for you to address me as if you thought I was hopelessly dishonest, because of the chilling effect that kind of comment has on other volunteers. George Swan 22:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
First, as a pure lower-case editorial comment, the CSRT section of this article contained nothing about the individual. In such a case, the appropriate style is to link to the general CSRT article, not to copy to each individual case. The reasons for that are Web usability: generally, people absorb information by better when they page, rather than scroll.
From an information retrieval standpoint, individual-level articles that are not linked with a higher-level overview are unlikely to be retrieved. There is content in many of your articles, but it would be more usable if the key points were in fewer places. In several of these articles, the most important information is at the very end, and a reader may well stop reading before they get to it. Let me ask something that is in no way a suggestion of lack of knowledge; it may be a term limited to U.S. journalism. Are you familiar with the idea of organizing articles as inverted pyramids? That is useful here, although it becomes more powerful with hyperlinks.
Speaking in a purely personal role, you might be surprised how much I agree on the violations by the Bush Administration. That being said, while I am not calling you intellectually dishonest, I do find them giving the appearance of agenda-pushing. From my perspective, I would rather not have contributions than have ones that are both hard to access and have a questionable aspect of neutrality. Let me apologize if I am mixing things in articles and the Forum, but your comments about your challenging "common knowledge" made quite a few assumptions about what has, and has not, been available for years. Not everyone in the U.S. gets their information from Fox News.
No, I did not tell you to do less sticking to the facts. I said to synthesize, which is fact-based. Literally, I do not understand what information is being given by an assortment of individual prisoner articles not particularly linked to each other, to a hierarchically higher article that allows going into depth, or other information.
As was discussed on the forum, it is not the goal of CZ to be the IMDB. It is something of a consensus that we'd rather have a good article on the character of James Bond and a list of books/movies, than individual movie articles.
I am completely aware that you may find these comments objectionable and not volunteer. I am not trying to drive you off, but, after consultation, I had to express that I have very serious quality concerns. It is within the CZ rules for an editor, typically with internal consultation, to say that an article is not acceptable.
Do you understand why I am concerned about more and more articles about prisoners in extrajudicial detention, when the extrajudicial detention content moved to the talk page, I believe, over a year ago and still has not come back as a full article defining the context of these individuals? Howard C. Berkowitz 22:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)