Talk:Steven Donziger/GA2

GA Reassessment

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Though this was reviewed just this year for GA, I am somewhat surprised it passed and identify a number of problems with the GA review. I mean no disrespect to Some Dude From North Carolina, but a GA is about more than just copyedits. Fundamental concerns such as neutrality and completeness must be weighed as well. With that in mind, below are my GA comments.

General

• I don't think this article is close to "broad in its coverage" without citing at least one book about the topic. I suggest "Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win" ISBN 0770436366 by Paul M. Barret. Alternatively, "Crude Awakening" by Michael D. Goldhaber, which is newer and cheaper, though shorter.
• That he played basketball with Obama seems like trivia, I question how important that really is, but I don't feel very strongly.
• "by offering investors" wait, who are the investors?
• I am not a fan of the quote box where Donziger protests the prison term. Of course he'd protest. And I would not say he is a reliable source to claim that such detention is in fact uncommon. Quotes should be used sparingly on Wikipedia.
• That he was on the daily show is trivia and should be removed.
• I have a lot of problems with the reactions section. It is both poorly written and not neutral. Its just a bunch of reviews slapped down without any real sense of organization. Chronological is not generally a good format for reception sections. As I see it from the sources, there are two camps of thought. One, the courts got it wrong, and this is a big boondoggle/miscarriage of justice. Two, the courts got it right, and Donziger is a slimeball who had it coming. We of course don't take a side, but I think the section could be organized into reactions for/against him. The dates of feedback are not very important, rather their content and origin. Re: neutrality, I have just gone and looked up a bunch of sources, and I think the reception section does not at all match the range of opinions in the press. As written, it is almost entirely pro-Donziger, which ignores the fairly large anti-Donziger camp.
• In line with the previous, I don't think the lead does a good job summarizing the disparate viewpoints. The lead seems very pro-Donziger.
• I've made some general copyedits, please let me know if I made any errors.
• Amazonwatch is Donziger's own website, I very much question if it should be cited at all. With so many other sources, surely the info could be found elsewhere?
• While I see that there is a "see also" for the initial class action suit, that link isn't actually all that useful since the target page does a pretty poor job covering it. I think the class action section needs more details by far. Its the centerpoint of Donziger's life and gets just a summary treatment.
• How is the photo of Donziger appropriately licensed? It looks to be a screen grab from a YouTube video, which would definitely not be free. on closer inspection, it does actually look to be CC liscensed at the video itself
• Speaking of images, it probably wouldn't be that hard to get a picture of Judge Kaplan either.
• The use of tweets as sources should almost always be avoided, with the exception of the tweet for his birthday.
• Why is "Donzigerdefense.com" an external link? Not sure what that brings to the article.
• "Kaplan appointed a private law firm, Seward & Kissel, to prosecute Donziger after the Southern District Court of New York declined to do so." wait, how could that be? Kaplan is a SDNY judge

In summary, I have concerns over GA criteria 1b(lead), 2b(source use), 3a&b(broad coverage), 4(NPOV), and 6(Illustrated), among other general errors. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 01:28, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

• The suggestion about removing trivia are fine with me. Or perhaps placing it under Personal Life if appropriate. Does Wikipedia have a policy about not including trivia in Good Articles?

• I am unclear on why citing books would broaden the coverage. Is there something the books have covered that the current sources have not? I have not read either suggestion. One was mentioned in a FAIR article: "The last story that the Times published on the subject was an opinion piece by business columnist Joe Nocera, who explored the “darker narrative about Donziger” (9/22/14)—a narrative that Bloomberg business writer Paul Barrett laid out in his book Law of the Jungle. Like Barrett, Nocera depicted Donziger as a “rogue lawyer willing to do virtually anything to win".

• "by offering investors" : investors are people who invest. It seems fairly clear. The source says “Donziger and his team, with FDA support, devised an innovative solution to fund the case, offering investors a tiny portion of any eventual settlement".

• Quote box: happy for the quote to be moved to a suitable place in the body. He may not be a reliable source for the claim about detention being unusual, but his comment is notable within his own bio. His comment is consistent with other comments about his detention provided in the Reactions sections. Elsewhere we mention the maximum sentence for his offence is six months so readers should be able to draw their own conclusions (“Lawyer's Rights Watch Canada points out that Donziger has been under house arrest for longer than the six–month maximum sentence that contempt of court carries” etc.).

• “the reception section does not at all match the range of opinions in the press. As written, it is almost entirely pro-Donziger, which ignores the fairly large anti-Donziger camp” : If you provide the references, the content can be added. As noted by FAIR, there has been a general media silence about the case, so sources covering Chevron’s viewpoint may be hard to find outside the WSJ, from which we have used four separate Chevron-friendly articles.

• Reactions section : the chap from North Carolina suggested rewriting this section to remove excessive use of the phraseology “In July 2020 …” etc. This has not been done yet and would improve the readability. We could also try gluing the various reactions together with some linking text.

• “The lead seems very pro-Donziger”. You are probably referring to the final part of the lead which gives various reactions, all favourable to Donziger. I agree this is excessive and could be reduced to a few sentences, one summarising support positions and one summarising support for Chevron.

• "I’ve made some general copyedits”: The copy edits are fine with me except that “released of liability” perhaps should be “released from liability”.

• “Amazonwatch is Donziger's own website”: Amazon Watch has not been used as a source in the article. Afaict there is no official connection between Donziger and Amazon Watch. This is my comment on the talk page: “[Donziger] is not listed as a member of its staff or board. His name does not appear in Amazon Watch's wiki and Amazon Watch does not appear in Donziger's wiki. Amazon Watch has supported Donziger's law suit on behalf of the Ecuadorians but has also done other work related to the protection of the Amazon”. An editor did quote one source as saying the two were “allied” without an explanation of what that means. Amazon watch is certainly supportive of Donziger’s lawsuit so is not a neutral observer.

• Class action against Chevron: The article Lago Agrio oil field has detailed info about the lawsuit. However, expanding the section would be fine.

• “on closer inspection, it does actually look to be CC liscensed at the video itself”: what do you mean? Is there a problem with the licensing of the photo?

• “it probably wouldn't be that hard to get a picture of Judge Kaplan either”: Rightho, although his wiki does not contain an image. I looked for images related to Donziger in the Commons but could not find anything unfortunately.

• “The use of tweets as sources should almost always be avoided, with the exception of the tweet for his birthday”: Agree.

• “Why is "Donzigerdefense.com" an external link?”: It is obviously relevant,. It is also partisan. What is the problem? Do you suggest removing it or maybe adding an equivalent link to Chevron’s defence website?

• “wait, how could that be? Kaplan is a SDNY judge”: That is not a mistake. It is apparently allowed and is one of the odd things about the case. It is mentioned in a number of sources.

Burrobert (talk) 06:04, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

• There is a policy against trivia in general, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trivia sections
• Books provide a more in-depth overview of most subjects, but I guess they are not mandatory so long as the article is brought up to par with other sources
• I've fixed the investors wording
• I stand by that Donziger's own quote about himself is inappropriate, or at least definitely the last sentence.
• https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/opinion/joe-nocera-behind-the-chevron-case.html?searchResultPosition=4, the most relevant section reads "What’s worse is that the Ecuadorians who live in the affected areas have still not seen any help, 20 years later. A lawyer with a more realistic view of the case might have been able to get a reasonable settlement early on. A lawyer who had played by the rules might have even won a judgment that would now be enforceable in an American court. “Donziger disserved his clients and his cause” by the way he conducted himself during the trial, Cassel now says." that being Doug Cassel, Notre Dame law prof.
• I would also use the currently used Forbes source in the reception. I would also suggest reading some of Forbe's other treatments of the subject, of which there are at least 4 others.
• My bad, instead of AmazonWatch I actually meant the "FreeDonziger" website, which I doubt has editorial oversight to make it a Wikipedia:Reliable sources
• Re: the image. There doesn't appear to be an issue with licensing after all, since the YouTube video is Creative commons licensed.

I should note that technically I am not required to make any changes to the article. I am more than willing to help out to some degree, but as the editor who wants this article to be a GA, the bulk of the work is on you or others willing to help you. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:47, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

• Another uninvolved comment, by an admittedly ill-educated editor: with respect to neutrality, I see no reason why "Donziger is a sleazeball" and "Donziger was convicted in a kangaroo court" are mutually exclusive views, nor of equal importance (surely show trials occurring in the U.S. are a bigger story than a crook attorney). That's not to say both opinions necessarily have merit. But at a first glance, the article appear to me, if anything, to understate the weight of criticisms of Chevron.
  A confounding factor in reporting U.S. media response is the substantiated claims of U.S. media reporting on the topic being directly interfered with by Chevron. It seems to me that a slight restructuring in "Reactions" could more clearly present the following narrative: a summary of what media coverage said regarding the situation (the 2018 WSJ editorial already there could be an example, but not presented as defining, and we're better getting independent sources that summarize U.S. coverage as a whole, perhaps even saying things like how it changed over time). This must be followed by the commentary on the media coverage (such as Hedges' writing). Then, present the content of: U.S. politicians' response; international response by lawyers; international response by organizations like the EU and UN.
  Additionally, in the lead of the article, unless I'm missing it somehow I think Seward & Kissel are absent. It should be mentioned that Donziger was prosecuted by a private law firm who had Chevron as a client, and convicted by a judge with a financial conflict of interest; then, material like the Nobel laureate, human rights activist, Congressional Progressive Caucus and U.N. response could be summarized into just a sentence or two. — Bilorv (talk) 16:22, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Below is a summary of what action has been taken regarding the points raised in the request for a GA2 review. In my opinion, some of the issues raised are "in the eye of the beholder" so would be best discussed on the article's talk page as they don't necessarily relate to article quality.

• The basketball game with Obama and the appearance on the Daily Show have been removed as trivia. Note that the Daily Show item was added to the article after the GA2 assessment was completed.

• The quote box has been removed and a shortened version of the quote placed in an appropriate place in the text. The article talk page is the best place to discuss whether the quote by Donziger is appropriate. It does not appear to be an issue related to article quality.

• The reactions section would benefit from some rewriting to improve readability. Two suggestions are to remove some of the phrases such as “In February 2021 … “ and to gather together items that are related.

• The part of the lead which summarises reactions could be rewritten. I think this is best discussed on the article talk page rather than a GA2 review.

• The class action section; The suggestion was to expand this section. Can’t give an opinion on this until we know what is missing. Something that is best discussed on the articles’ talk page or by adding any missing information.

• The tweets have been replaced with appropriate references. Note that these were added to the page after the GA2 assessment was completed.

• External link to Donzigerdefense.com”. The policy page on external links says “Wikipedia articles about any organisation, person, website, or other entity should link to the subject's official site, if any”.

Burrobert (talk) 14:07, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

@Burrobert You are more than welcome to open talk page discussion on the issues you think should be discussed. But at the end of the day, they do need to be reworked in some way. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 23:49, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

• Since there has been no activity for weeks and none seems forthcoming, the result is  Delisted CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:01, 23 November 2021 (UTC)