User talk:PARAKANYAA

Please be more careful

You initiated Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Abdul_Aziz_Abdullah_Ali_Al_Suadi. In your nomination you wrote "This is one of many articles related to one person's (?) attempt to make an article on seemingly everyone who has ever been detained at Guantanamo."

First things first -- wrong merge target. If the article is going to be redirected it should be redirected to List of Saudi detainees at Guantanamo Bay. List of Guantanamo Bay detainees is flawed, in several ways, including:

1. Guantanamo was full of namesakes. Something like 100 of the captives have essentially the same name as another captive. It is essential that any list of them include their Guantanamo serial number.
2. In the time I worked on the captives I stopped trying to shoehorn those names into the European convention of Lastname, firstname. Neither Afghans, or people with Arabic names, who live in Arabia or North Africa, use inherited surnames. Did you study Eric the red and his son Lief Ericson, the first Vikings to land in Greenland and Labrador, in school? If Lief had a son named Joe, then, in one of the two parallel styles of Arabic naming, Lief would be "Abu Joe Lief", and Eric would be "Abu Lief Eric", where "Abu" means "the father of". Arabic names work similarly to European names that predate the invention of surnames, in the 12th century. Trying to shoehorn the captives' names into a European surname style just doesn't make sense.
3. List of Guantanamo Bay detainees does not list the individuals arrival or departure dates, while List of Saudi detainees at Guantanamo Bay does include their departure dates.

WRT your personal comments, about my efforts, yes, I did start many articles on Guantanamo captives. No, I absolutely did not attempt to make an article on everyone who has ever been detained at Guantanamo.

I looked to see if we had ever interacted [1]. It looks like we had not, unless you had an earlier presence on the Wikipedia, and subsequently retired that ID, and started a brand new ID.

Your first edits using the PARAKANYAA id date back to July 2023. So, forgive me for sharing some Wikipedia history.

The Wikipedia has undergone a considerable evolution. When I was a newbie, in 2004 and 2005, among the things co-founder Jimbo Wales said about the wikipedia's scope, that was routinely quoted, was (paraphrasing from memory) "I don't see why the Wikipedia shouldn't have an article on every Pokeman character." Well, the Wikipedia has evolved, since then. The reason why it doesn't have an article on every Pokemon character is that while Pikachu had a movie made after him, and some of the other famous Pokeman characters have received meaningful coverage in reliable sources, the rest of those 500 characters, if they are covered at all, are covered in fanzines and blogs, not reliable sources.

I did start covering individuals held in Guantanamo in 2005, when, frankly, the wikipedia's standards were much more relaxed. I know I have had critics who point to articles I started in 2005 and 2006, claiming I created those articles in violation of WP:BLP. But BLP had not been written at the time I started them. I don't like reading that there was anything wrong with the articles I started when standards were looser. And I don't like reading that I am at fault for starting articles that measured up to the standards current at the time when someone thinks they don't measure up to the standards current almost two decades later.

I would never have tried to "make an article on seemingly everyone" -- as you claimed, because we knew nothing about one quarter of those men and boys. Their identities, and other information about them was only released following some Freedom of Information Act requests, starting in late 2005. So, if there wasn't press coverage of their release, or of their habeas corpus petitions, and they had failed to be able to write to their families, they were unknown, and I wouldn't have considered writing about them.

There were people, before I started on the Wikipedia, who had started trying to create an article on every individual who was killed, or been present, during al Qaeda's attacks on 9-11. Before my time, there was a discussion, and a mass deletion of almost all of those articles. I learned about these earlier articles early in my Wikipedia career, when I started articles on Stanley Praimnath and Brian Clark (September 11 survivor). Deletionists argued that articles like those had to go, because of the decision to mass-delete all articles on victims and survivors. And I argued that that earlier decision did not apply to victims or survivors who measured up to GNG.

I worked on some of the articles on individuals who played a role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Congress, and on some articles related to some of the US mass shootings. I participated in some AFDs on those articles. I argued there that each individual's notability had to be carefully considered on a case by case basis. While tens of thousands of people played a role on 2021-01-06, almost none of them would measure up to GNG. But the Wikipedia absolutely should have standalone articles on those who do measure up to GNG.

Every time I've started an article I did my best to comply with the standards current at the time. I am going to repeat that, because I think it is important. Every time I've started an article I did my best to comply with the standards current at the time.

I don't like reading that I am someone who created articles that violated BLP, when I started those articles when standards were more relaxed, and there was no BLP.

If you participate in off-wiki discussions, via email, via a mailing list, via IRC, do me a favour, do the whole project a favour. If another wiki contributor starts to criticize a current or former wiki contributor, in that forum, remind them that Wikipedia policy bars off-wiki harassment. Ask them if they voiced their concern directly on the other person's User talk page, or linked to their comments, on the other person's User talk page.

Do me a favour, do the whole project a favour. Don't accept at face value off-wiki criticisms, where the criticized person has not had a chance to read and respond to the criticism. I think, if you examine those counter-policy off-wiki criticisms closely, you will find a significant amount of it is actually quite unfair and unreliable.

Thanks Geo Swan (talk) 17:32, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

@Geo Swan I don't know you particularly, I am just active in WikiProject Crime, and have a tendency to read through old pages. I noticed you made a whole lot of articles on Guantanamo, many of which seemed to be very similar - I did not actually think you made an article on every single Guantanamo detainee. Apologies for the hyperbole. I don't think they were made with bad intentions, standards were more relaxed in the 2000s it seems. My issue isn't really with BLP - while it's probably technically violative, it's Guantanamo, US government and all - my concern is more the state of the sourcing, mostly reports and non-sigcov of the person in question. Your writing is not out of step with the standards at the time, this was regular back then, but standards changed. I apologize for my language, I probably could have been nicer about the nomination and generally how I referred to said articles.

My first active edits were IIRC in late 2022, "PARAKANYAA" is the first account I have ever made substantial contributions on. I think I had an account or two when I was a kid with a handful of edits, but the name escapes me. I have never discussed you offsite, or read about you offsite. I have just encountered your name looking through old wikipedia pages often. Just wanted to clear any records.

The reason I didn't say redirect to the Saudi list is the article says he is from Yemen, nothing about being from Saudi Arabia. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:43, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks for the several clarifications.
• WRT to Saudi versus Yemeni, you are correct. There is List_of_Yemeni_detainees_at_Guantanamo_Bay... Geo Swan (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2024 (UTC)