Talk:Wolf Amendment

I can't work out from the edit summaries why this content is not suitable for the article:

"In 2013, a number of American scientists decided to boycott a NASA meeting, with senior academics either withdrawing individually, or pulling out their entire research groups. This was in response to actions by officials at NASA Ames to prohibit Chinese nationals from attending the Kepler Science Conference II. Rep. Frank Wolf was quick to respond in a letter to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, saying that the restriction only applied to bilateral meetings and activities between NASA and the Chinese government or Chinese-owned companies. The NASA Ames officials had mischaracterized the law as Kepler Science Conference II is a multilateral event".^[1]

Any thoughts? Burrobert (talk) 20:23, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

The edit summaries clearly noted it was an WP:LTA edit, in other words the edit was WP:BLOCKEVASION. The edit further was an unattributed copyright violation of earlier text. If you think it is relevant, I would suggest either rewriting it from the source, or adding with proper attribution. CMD (talk) 02:14, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• How did the editor who mentioned LTA know someone was trying to evade a block?
• ”unattributed copyright violation of earlier text”: do you mean an editor reinstated text that had previously been removed?
• I presume then that no editors found problems with the sources or content itself then, apart from the way in which it was written.

Burrobert (talk) 02:50, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Because the user who added the text is blocked for that reason.
• Reinstated without any attribution at all.
• Given it was removed at some point, someone must have had an issue with it. CMD (talk) 03:16, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

The only reason given for removal of the text is that an editor was avoiding a block and using ip’s to re-add the text. No editor mentioned that the text itself was a problem. I can’t see that the reason given should stop other editors from re-adding the text. I am also confused about why an independent editor was warned about re-adding the text.

Here is the list of additions and reversions related to the text as well as the reasons given by the various editors. The only reason mentioned for removing the text is that editor Govercon was evading a block and was using ip’s to insert the text.

Added by Govercon on 20/3/21

Removed by User:Chipmunkdavis on 8/5/21 (Rv WP:LTA)

Re-added by User:Mitchen Mackvid on 8/5/21

Removed by User:Canterbury Tail on 8/5/21 with no explanation

Re-added by User:Albertaont on 20/5/21 (removed unsourced see also and revert)

Removed by Chipmunkdavis on 21/5/21 (Restore last clean + include IP addition)

Re-added by Albertaont on 21/5/21 (please see the note about see-also, maintain last IP edit)

Removed by Chipmunkdavis on 21/5/21 (Last clean version maintaining see also removal)

Re-added by ip 101.175.135.71 on 22/5/21 (Why was so much information inexplicably removed?)

Removed by Chipmunkdavis on 22/5/21 (Rv WP:LTA)

Re-added by ip 66.130.112.254 on 23/5/21

Removed by Chipmunkdavis on 23/5/21 no reason given

Re-added by ip 86.160.104.129 on 23/5/21 (Last I checked Wikipedia is supposed to be inclusionist and neutral mate. Erasure is not a good look.)

Removed by Run n Fly on 23/5/21 no explanation given

Re-added by Albertaont on 23/5/21 (unexplained reversion)

Removed by Run n Fly on 23/5/21 (See below reasons by User:Chipmunkdavis)

Re-added by ip 217.55.50.75 on 24/5/21 (The version by Albertaont seems to also check out as neutral and non-vandalism.You cannot just assume everyone is a sockpuppet.)

Removed by Run n Fly on 24/5/21 (IP is WP:LTA of User:Govercon)

Editor Albertaont was warned off from re-adding the text ():

"Please do not add back the information back due to WP:LTA by Govercon who is possible editing in form of IP now. See the oldest diff here. Thank you. Run n Fly (talk) 21:18, 23 May 2021"

Burrobert (talk) 11:36, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Presumably the editor was warned because they were restoring without explanation text written by a blocked user, and one with a history of misrepresenting sources. As I said above, it was also an unattributed copyvio, meaning the text was in some versions of the article long before the LTA disruption. What appears to be happening is the LTA restoring text that was most recently changed in this edit from 2 August.

In general terms of content, no-one should add text back from a blocked editor without explicitly taking responsibility for the content, which presumably means verifying the information and sources themselves. In regards to this particular edit, the reason no other editors should re-add the relevant text is because the information is already in the article, located where it was put in the 2 August edit, in the fourth paragraph (excluding quotes) of the History section. CMD (talk) 11:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Yes the information is already in the article. Perhaps I should have noticed that. It would also have been helpful if one of the reverting editors had mentioned that as a reason. It is a more appropriate reason for reverting Mitchen Mackvid and Albertaont than mentioning the prior actions of an editor who had nothing to do with them.
• "no-one should add text back from a blocked editor without explicitly taking responsibility for the content, which presumably means verifying the information and sources themselves": We should assume that User:Mitchen Mackvid and User:Albertaont did that when they added the text back into the article.

Burrobert (talk) 13:01, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Why would a reverting editor need to mention that, given they were not acting on the content but instead handling block evasion? The whole point of reverting such edits is so that no time is wasted on bad-faith editors. Wikipedia:Revert, block, ignore, not revert block and spend time edit warring in and discussing on the talkpage a pointless unattributed copyright violation that duplicates existing text. As for responsibility, Mitchen Mackvid is the LTA, and if in your opinion another editor actually took responsibility for the edit in question, perhaps you could warn them about copyright violations and the need for attribution. CMD (talk) 13:19, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• Albertaont was not part of the block evasion. A reversion of content added by Albertaont would require a different reason, such as that the content was already in the article.
• Regarding copyright violation, are you saying that reusing text that had been previously added by another user requires attribution to the original user, otherwise it is a breach of copyright? It isn't an area I am very familiar with, however, I have not seen that argument used before. Do you have a reference?
• Editors take responsibility for their edits by making the edit. What other way is there? Burrobert (talk) 13:42, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Again, the content was from a perennially unreliable editor, and was not checked. This reasoning has already been listed above. On claiming responsibility, editors can communicate, through edit summaries and/or talkpages, indicating that they have checked and therefore do take responsibility. Attribution is required (WP:CWW). This is a rare case of within-article copying, but note there was no attribution or indication in the relevant edit summary, so it gave off the appearance of being original content. I'm not sure what is trying to be achieved with this discussion, suffice to say again, that this was a case of WP:BLOCKEVASION and you should not let a blocked editor continue to waste your time here. CMD (talk) 14:11, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi all. I've added a few tags to the top of the article, and I wanted to expand upon my reasoning here. As I noted in the edit summary, [t]his article relies heavily upon primary sources, uses an appropriations bill as the sole citation in the lead, and appears to be engaged in the novel interpretation of various letters. This comes across as a novel synthesis of information regarding the topic, and I'm unsure that there is significant coverage of the topic itself that would pass WP:GNG. My rationale here is that, looking at the news articles, none seem to be fundamentally about the policy (they seem to be about a particular protest relating to a specific ban of Chinese individuals from a particular conference). The article's citation of the ban being general is a direct primary source reference to a particular appropriations bill. The reason that this appears to have a claim of significance relates to a protest at the decision to exclude PRC nationals from Kepler Science Conference II. There's also a primary source reference to a congressional letter written about the topic. I'm not sure where the title of this article came from (it reminds me of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned the immigration of all Chinese laborers), but it doesn't appear to be a WP:COMMONNAME and I can't find the name reflected in reliable sources. There's certainly a bilateral ban, but the article seems really stretched given the relative dearth of coverage that appears on the bilateral policy itself. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 16:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

The article says that NASA obtained "congressional approval" to assist China on the Chang'e 4 mission, but the quotation from NASA says only that "NASA has certified to Congress" that it will do so. Meanwhile the quoted legislation says that such bilateral cooperation would have to be "specifically authorized by a law." Are these three different ways of saying the same thing, or is there more than one mechanism for obtaining authorization? Jmarks13 (talk) 18:21, 6 July 2021 (UTC)