Talk:Aline Marie Massel

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Revision as of 17:57, 6 February 2019 by Geo Swan (Talk | contribs) (Here are links to NY Judge Yaffe's rulings...)

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User:Omega Mind made a huge informationectomy to this article with the misleading edit summary "add balance". They followed it with a small addition of a paragraph about a recent step in Ms Massel's ongoing dispute with Mr Gibbins. That addition was an unbalanced one sentence summary of the reference it added.

I voiced my concern on User talk:Omega Mind. In that comment I asked Omega Mind, whose only edits here have been focussed around the Massel/Gibbins dispute, whether their edits here would be in violation of the Wikipedia's rules on conflict of interest. In their reply they replied by saying "The only issue at hand here is what content is appropriate for a WikiAlpha article."

I am going to interpret that as a tacit acknowledgement that Omega Mind is closely associated with Gibbins.

They went on to say:

  1. "The fact is that the British courts found Massel guilty of defrauding and extorting Gibbins, and that her outlandish claims had no basis in fact.
  2. "So why would you insist on keeping in all that content that was shown in court to be false?
  3. "It may be accurate that Massel made those false claims, but it's irresponsible to use WikiAlpha as a platform for them - especially with no caveat about their fraudulence.

I am not aware of any content disputes on wikialpha in the past.

I don't think the sentence you added, "A London court also found that Massel lied to and defrauded Gibbins in her attempts to extort him..." referencing the following New York Daily News article, is a fair or neutral summary.

That article says:

  1. "Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe tossed Massel’s lawsuit against Autonomy Capital CEO Robert Charles Gibbins late Wednesday because the woman’s claims had already been rejected by a UK judge..."
  2. "Justice Jaffe found that “she does not show that she attempted to seek appropriate relief from the British court and offers no authority for the proposition that she is entitled to relief via a collateral attack” in the New York court..."
  3. "In March, a British judge determined that Massel’s STD claims were not credible because she never submitted medical tests proving the allegation..."
  4. "Eddie Hayes, Massel’s attorney, said, “Women are at a terrible disadvantage in England because the proceedings are secret and usually only the man can pay the legal fees..."

I think your one sentence summary is focussed solely on, and misinterpreting paragraph number 1.

The article you referenced does not to repeat your phrase, establish that the UK court "...found that Massel lied to and defrauded Gibbins..." Rather, the article says the UK court determined that Massel failed to document, and thus couldn't prove, that Gibbins made extravagant promises, and that Massel didn't have documentary evidence of an STD infection. This is not equivalent to finding she lied, or tried to defraud Gibbins.

The second numbered paragraph, above? It is a reflection of a broad legal principle. Courts generally won't consider a case when another court, or tribunal, has already taken that case up. I live in a housing coop. Where I live there are special laws that apply to housing coops, that establish that, when a member has a dispute with the board, they can establish a tribunal, conducted by trusted uninvolved individuals from the broader community. When two of the coops I lived in had disputes, and the disputants threatened to go to the Human Rights Commission, or to court. By initiating those less formal tribunals my coops gave the tribunals jurisdiction, so the courts, or Human Rights Commission would conclude they did not have jurisdiction. The conclusion you included in your one sentence summary implied that the NY court was endorsing the UK court's conclusions. I suggest what the NY court was actually saying is that rather than try to initiate a parallel case in NY Massel should instead appeal the UK ruling to a higher court, in the UK. I suggest this is not an endorsement, it is an explanation as to why the NY court concluded it did not have jurisdiction.

The fourth numbered paragraph, above? Your one sentence summary does not reflect it, at all.

You wrote:

  1. I would be happy to work together with you in good faith to reach a consensus on this.
  2. But it would be completely inappropriate to keep the article on Massel as it stands now.

With regard to good faith, in wikipedia terms yours would be a "single purpose account", as all your edits are focused on the Massel/Gibbins dispute. Rich guys hire shills, professional image laundering firms, to launder wikipedia articles that accurately cover embarrassing details about their lives. After a lot of discussion some image consultants have gone on record that they will comply with some transparency rules on the English language wikipedia. Other rogue firms continue to establish wiki-IDs that they pretend are ordinary contributors, which they use to covertly sanitize their client's articles. They even dumb down their talk page comments, making spelling errors, to appear more like ordinary joes and jills.

So I am going to ask, again, for you to be open about your relationship with Gibbins.

Further, it would go a long way to establishing that you can be trusted, if you acknowedged the weaknesses I outlined, above, in your two recent edits.

With regard to appropriateness or inappropriateness of the article's current contents... You have called upon us to follow wikipedia policies and conventions, but, it seems to me that you have been cherry-picking. Over on the wikipedia contributors are not supposed to insert their own opinion. Opinions are supposed to come from reliable sources.

That the UK court ruled that "...that Massel lied to and defrauded Gibbins..."? This is YOUR personal opinion, not the opinion of all the reliable sources. I don't believe it is even the opinion expressed by Molly Crane-Newman, the author of the one new reference you added. Geo Swan (talk) 21:54, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Here are links to NY Judge Yaffe's rulings...

Here are links to NY Judge Yaffe's rulings, which I believe back up my interpretation of what the rulings said about jurisdiction. Geo Swan (talk) 22:22, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

  1. 2018-03-18
  2. 2018-11-15

Using wikipedia policies Yaffe's ruling would be a "primary source". On the wikipedia BLP proponents would assert it shouldn't be used, at all.

What does Yaffe's document say, that wasn't mentioned in the NY Post article?

  1. Gibbins tried, and failed, to have the case sealed. Yaffe agreed, in her 2018-03-18 ruling, with Massel's lawyers that the information was already in the public domain.
  2. Gibbins filed his civil suit against Massel when Massel was in a mental institution. Her doctor "thus opined that from October to December 2017, and in the months before her treatment, plaintiff was unable to 'protect her legal rights in any way.' Geo Swan (talk) 23:03, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
  3. Gibbins lawyers claimed that Massel couldn't claim she couldn't afford to pay for competent UK lawyers wasn't credible, since she paid a fortune for her stay in the mental institution. Alternately, she felt she was desperately ill, and plunked down every cent she could afford, for that stay, and had nothing left when she needed to hire a lawyer. Geo Swan (talk) 23:15, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Is it appropriate to discuss what references actually mean, on a talk page? Would that be in violation of the wikipedia's rules on no original research and neutral point of view? No. Good faith contributors routinely make good faith attempts to neutrally summarize reliable sources, and, nevertheless fail. Their good faith efforts can be wildly inaccurate when what the reliable sources wrote was complicated and the good faith contributor seriously misunderstood the reliable sources.
So, in my opinion, the wikipedia's rules on original research and neutral point of view, should only apply in article space. Good faith contributors writing about what reliable sources are actually saying, what reliable sources actually meant, opinions that would be serious lapses from the wikipedia's rules, in article space, can be absolutely necessary to make sure those reliable sources aren't being misinterpreted. Geo Swan (talk) 23:26, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
Hi Geo Swan. You'll excuse me for not replying promptly, as I've had some real-life commitments to attend to.
First, I will address your question about my "relationship with Gibbins," since you've inquired about this several times, and I don't want you to think I'm willfully ignoring you. I've chosen not to elaborate on this for personal privacy reasons, but I'm sure you will agree that encyclopedic content (WikiAlpha is an encyclopedia, after all) should be judged on its objective merits, not based on the purveyor of that content. Even if I were Gibbins himself (and I'm assuredly not), it would certainly still behoove a responsible editor to judge my proposed content objectively.
To address the content issue at hand, I think there was some confusion about the part of the Daily News article I was referring to. The article states:

"On March 21, Gibbins, 48, sued Massel in London on fraud charges, claiming his jilted ex-lover was seeking to extort him. The court ultimately ruled in Gibbins’ favor."

It doesn't get much clearer than that. So I'll reiterate what I said earlier: The British courts found Massel guilty of defrauding and extorting Gibbins, i.e., her claims were ruled false in court. So it is irresponsible to use WikiAlpha as a platform to spread Massel's false claims, especially with no caveat about their fraudulence.
I hope you can listen to reason and reconsider your position here. Much appreciated, Ω MindTALK 15:49, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
You wrote:
It doesn't get much clearer than that. So I'll reiterate what I said earlier: The British courts found Massel guilty of defrauding and extorting Gibbins.
  • Point of order, that quote is from the New York Daily News [1]. Could you please be a lot more careful? I spent considerable time today finding what I thought would be other quotes for the article you were quoting, only to realize you named the wrong publication... Geo Swan (talk) 17:41, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  • With regard to who you are... I accept, at face value, that you are not Robert Charles Gibbins, himself. You didn't address whether you were someone close to him, like Ipek Gibbins, his actual wife, or his Press Agent. On the wikipedia, the rules would oblige you to acknowledge a close relationship, and would restrict your editing.
There are looser rules here. The articles on Gibbins and Massel are all you have shown interest in here. I find that frankly suspicious. If you want me to stop being suspicious of your frankly suspicion-raising editing, you will be more forthcoming as to your relationship with Gibbins. Geo Swan (talk) 17:43, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Is it your intent that the article should say that the UK court ruled that Massel was guilty of fraud and extortion? This was a civil lawsuit, not a criminal trial, correct? As was the NY case... It is my understanding that Judges in civil suits do not determine guilt or innocence on criminal charges. And my reading of the coverage of the UK lawsuit is that he ruled that Massel couldn't prove her accusations against Gibbins. That is hardly the same as a guilty verdict.
Note, Gibbon's lawyers seem to have launched the lawsuit when Massel was in a mental institution, for suicidal ideation. Her doctors orders were that trying to respond to the lawsuit would interfere with her recovery attempts. They wrote to the Judge, but, apparently the Judge felt that the letter didn't use the correct legal jargon for him to take seriously. Geo Swan (talk) 17:57, 6 February 2019 (UTC)