Talk:Ian Langford (soldier)

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Biography: Military This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography This article is supported by the military biography work group (assessed as Low-importance). An editor has requested that an image or photograph be added to this article. Australia: Military history Low‑importance Ian Langford (soldier) is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.AustraliaWikipedia:WikiProject AustraliaTemplate:WikiProject AustraliaAustralia Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by the Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific military history task force (assessed as Low-importance). Need help improving this article? Ask a LibrarianWhat's this? at the National Library of Australia. The Wikimedia Australia chapter can be contacted via email to helpwikimedia.org.au for non-editorial assistance.

Thanks for your suggestion @Umakant Bhalerao. I really need to build out the military service side first, but, yes, there are many articles that could link back to the subject. Thanks for the tip.MatthewDalhousie (talk) 23:23, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Karch15 noticed this edit you made, adding material from the Afghanistan Inquiry Implementation Oversight Panel and from an academic paper that the subject "should have known" of the wrong actions of soldiers on operations at the time of operations. And it raised a few questions for me, as we're looking after a biography of a living person here, particularly that:

• Whether it's appropriate to cite a report that makes no mention of the individual, as support for accusations you appear to be making about a particular person.
• How that squares with the wikipedia principle of assuming the innocence of a person, as discussed here
• If it's a good idea to use primary sources such as the report of a military inquiry, rather than articles from trusted news platforms, particularly given the guidance from Wikipedia that we use extreme caution with these sources
• Whether you're aware that wikipedia takes a very dim view of using the platform to attack individuals, something that I'm concerned about as you appear to have only created your account recently, and have only used it to add negative content to an article about one particular person.
• If you do decide you'd like to use the material from the source material you're using—the Inquiry report and an academic article (which I don't think you cited)—whether you've given consideration to the fact that this material is about the activities of units, and makes no mention of individual soldiers or commanders, and that perhaps it's more appropriate for the content to appear on articles about those units, such as the article Military history of Australia during the War in Afghanistan.

I'm personally inclined to follow the advice that Wikipedia provides which is "editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured."

MatthewDalhousie (talk) 07:47, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see any good reason to go against the directive of Wikipedia on this topic. Grateful to see the proper change has been made by the editor. MatthewDalhousie (talk) 22:27, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]