Talk:Drew Pavlou/Archive 1

Archive 1

Keep rationale

Because this ALWAYS happens, here is my keep rationale: he passes WP:BLP1E because there is clearly more than one event (the rally, the disciplinary hearings), he passes WP:BASIC based on the coverage in multiple reliable sources, the coverage is clearly sustained for several months so we're not in WP:NOTNEWS territory. FOARP (talk) 10:43, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Recent edits

The new lede is overlong and covers too much of what ought to be in the article. We should use fewer verbatim quotes as the current heavy usage is a WP:COPYVIO nightmare. No source is provided for the statement that Pavlou lost his case at the magistrates and this alone is a WP:BLP no-no. Facebook IS NOT a reliable source - we need secondary sourcing (EDIT: neither is Twitter). The article "Anti-China University of Queensland student Drew Pavlou caught up in 'kangaroo court', lawyer claims in 16-page appeal" does not contain the statements it is being relied on for in this article, which are again a big WP:BLP no-no. There's a lot of WP:UNDUE stuff in here which could be shortened/cut. FOARP (talk) 13:11, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

The leed is not "overlong" and as per MOS:LEAD, summarises the important parts of the article (his protests, suspension, appeals and court cases). And the use of two quotes, both of which are cited in-line as primary sources and treated as such per our policies, is not a copyright violation - we're not claiming that it's our work, and we're providing accepted referencing and recognition of the source. The primary material is treated as primary material and corroborated and summarised by secondary sources, which are also already provided. And the claim that his case against the Chinese consul-general was dropped by the court is not unsourced (See this ABC News story). And the main issue for this article right now, and actually in the past, is that editors have used it as a battle ground to defend Pavlou's behaviour - after every allegation against him or every finding that doesn't swing his way, some editors have an apparent need to add stuff like him rejecting the integrity of the court, or one anecdotal oversight from an unverified source. Balance doesn't mean that we censor or try to qualify Pavlou's behaviour. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 07:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Defend/attack doesn't matter. What is important is NPOV and sourcing, which this page had severe issues with (especially the supposed comments that weren't actually sourced at all in the article that was supposed to support them). That you've found sources now for some doesn't excuse not sourcing them (whoever did that) in the first place. This is a WP:BLP page and I strongly encourage anyone editing this page to familiarise themselves with the applicable policies. FOARP (talk) 11:27, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Using this article to attack or defend Pavlou is an NPOV violation, that's what I'm saying. And what "supposed comments that weren't actually sourced" are you talking about - when I pretty much rewrote this entire article about 3 or 4 days ago, I included sources for literally everything? I misread two sources, sure, but that was literally a simple mistake that was pointed out to me on my talk page and fixed. And actually, it doesn't hugely matter about issues in old version of this article because by nature of Wikipedia, they get fixed rather quickly - it's not exactly like this article is getting so many hits anyways that an edit that's up for a few minutes is going to dramatically change public discourse. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 05:25, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Adding in content quoting Pavlou as saying things that are not in the source you are relying on, in the section about the protests (how are they related to the protests?), is not "balancing" anything. FOARP (talk) 10:36, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

@FOARP: It's literally in the source, what are you talking about?! ABC News' report literally says "allegations include... using the 'c-word' to describe business and finance students, alleging they had no views beyond those of their wealthy parents." He's even confirmed on Twitter in response to this WP article (not that he's exactly a reliable source considering it can't be verified and hasn't been echoed by other media agencies) that he did say it, so any dispute about the facts of the matter is simply nonsense. I made an initial oversight when I misread the article by stating that he made that comment specifically to Chinese students, which I've since corrected, admitted fault, and apologised for. But the counter-allegations from counter-protestors are relevant. Before you do any more blanking of content because it doesn't swing in favour of Pavlou, please discuss it here first - again, we're not here to be Pavlou's defence team. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 01:36, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

It's not in the source. The source does not use that word, it might allude to that word, but the paraphrasing of it into "C***" is YOUR paraphrasing. Moreover, you haven't explained why this is relevant to the protests (the section you keep adding it to). The implication is that it was being said at the protests and excuses the alleged assault - but again, this is your editorial view. FOARP (talk) 09:51, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

UQ News is not a reliable source except for statements of the view of UQ officials

UQ news does not appear to be an RS. It is clearly run by UQ and anyway simply relaying the statements of UQ officials, and as such not sufficiently neutral to rely on for statements of fact in this case, any more than Pavlou's Facebook/Twitter feed is for the same reason. Let's stick to reliable sources. FOARP (talk) 11:22, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes and no. If we're talking about opinions and perspectives, absolutely use it as a primary source with in-text citations (In a statement published on the UQ website, Chancellor Vaghase..., which is what I've been doing). But for facts like how the suspension was reduced from 2 years to one semester, UQ is pretty much the most reliable source you'll find - there's not going to be any proper disagreement about facts when they're all the same across every source. I think we also need to keep in mind that the UQ disciplinary board and SDAC are independent from the rest of UQ in same way that the courts are independent from the rest of government. By all means, if you wanted to find another source like the ABC or SBS for facts, go for it, but UQ News is a perfectly fine source for non-controversial figures. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 05:32, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

"anti-Chinese government activist"

@FOARP: All five of the sources for the first sentence call Pavlou an anti-Chinese government activist. It's more of an NPOV issue for us to keep calling him just a blanket activist when his entirire activism relates to his anti-Chinese government protesting and that he is called an anti-Chinese government activist by the majority of sources. And while I'm sure there's probably some Brisbane Times articles or whatever that call Pavlou a human rights activist or something that's a bit more friendly for him, that's just cherry picking considering that every other source you'll come across in everyday reading says "anti-Chinese government activist" (not to mention that again, WP isn't here to appease Pavlou). ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 08:35, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if it is true if he is called an "anti Chinese government activist" in the majority of sources. Indeed, this is a very awkward phrase and possibly not the most accurate. Instead I think the five sources at the start of the article may not be representative. Let's test this and see what the first description of him is on the first 10 articles about him on GNews (you can see my search here):

• 1) Courier Mail: "Student activist"
• 2) Guardian: "student activist"

(skipping MacroBusiness and Neos Kosmos as non reliable sources, but for the record they describe him as "suspended student", “the boy who kicked the hornets’ nest”, "student", "Leftie Kid", "Greek Australian Student")

• 3) Courier Mail: "Suspended UQ student"
• 4) The Age: "Student activist"
• 5) News.com.au: "UQ activist"

(skipping Bitter Winter and the Daily Mail again as non-RS, but for the record "Australian citizen", and "student activist")

• 6) Times Higher Education: "suspended University of Queensland student and anti-CCP campaigner"
• 7) Eurasia Review: "fourth-year humanities student"

(skipping Global Voices Advocacy as it isn't an RS, but again, for the record, "University of Queensland (UQ) student")

• 8) The Australian: "Anti-Chinese-influence student activist"
• 9) Hong Kong Free Press: "University of Queensland (UQ) student"
• 10) Guardian: "A student activist critical of Beijing"

So, that's five counts of "student activist", one more of "UQ activist", and zero of him as an "anti-Chinese government activist". The closest we get to that is one source saying "critical of Beijing", one saying "anti-CCP campaigner", and another saying "Anti-Chinese-influence student activist". If we have to qualify the word "activist", then the only NPOV term supported by the majority of sources is "student activist". FOARP (talk) 09:18, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I get what you're trying to get at, but I fear purposefully looking for new sources is cherry picking/source shopping. Going through the existing sources in the article, he's described as a:

• human rights activist (Brisbane Times)
• anti-Chinese government activist (ABC, ABC, ABC, The Guardian ["criticising the Chinese Communist Party" which categorically is anti-Chinese government], Wall Street Journal ["known for his criticism of Beijing" which again is a euphemism for anti-Chinese government], Washington Post ["vocal critic of China" is same as previous two], The Australian ["protest against the Chinese government" same as above], The Australian ["pro-Hong Kong" which is inherently anti-CCP], ABC ["is anti-Beijing"], ABC ["his activism on campus against the Chinese Communist Party"], his own Twitter post ["criticizing the Chinese Communist Party" - he's literally saying he's anti-CCP]) - since the CCP and Chinese government are effectively the same, I'm counting them together.

There are a few more sources that I haven't gone through, but I think you get the idea. I have no issue with calling him a "student anti-Chinese government activist" or an "anti-Chinese government student activist" or whatever variation since, well, he's a student and an activist, but I think it's pretty obvious that he is explicitly and categorically anti-Chinese government. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 09:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

The problem is, the sources currently used in the article don't appear to be representative of what reliable sources are actually saying about Pavlou and appear to have been cherry-picked. Another way of testing this is to count the total number of GNews hits for different descriptions. For "Drew Pavlou" + "Student activist" the count is 83 (remember that you have to go to the last page of results to get the actual count, the number shown on the first page is often inaccurate), for "Drew Pavlou" + "anti-Chinese government activist" the count is 2. This strongly supports the idea that "student activist" is actually the most common descriptor and "anti-Chinese government activist" is a fringe descriptor. Your defence of this term consists of going through articles and finding terms that you then paraphrase. This is WP:OR. FOARP (talk) 09:18, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

As I hinted to, I think the best option is to say "anti-Chinese government student activist" or something along those lines. And based on Google News, the best option would actually be "anti-China", and with a simple change from noun to adjective to match the sentence structure per WP:COMMONSENSE, the best descriptor is anti-Chinese so, yeah. And while I get what you're hinting at, reading a news article semantics rather than surface-level patterns isn't really WP:OR as far as my interpretation of that policy is. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 09:51, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Very, very obviously it is not OK to pick something that is not being used as a descriptor of Pavlou in the articles, or is being used by a POV source quoted in articles, and use that to support using it as an NPOV descriptor of Pavlou. In most articles on the first page of results the term "anti-China" is being used to describe comments, protests etc. but not Pavlou himself. One of the results on the first page is the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which rather suggests that many of the other hits are simply quoting the PRC MFA. "Activist" or "student activist" are NPOV, descriptive, and commonly-used to describe Pavlou. "Anti-Chinese government student activist" is long, awkward, not NPOV, and hardly used by anyone. FOARP (talk) 10:10, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Let me get this right. You're trying to say that someone who is protesting against the Chinese government/CCP is not an anti-Chinese government protestor? That's literally what you're saying and it makes no sense. And sure, it looks like 1 out of the 149 news articles is from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs - looks like we've now for 148 sources calling him "anti-China" (which again, I accept that we shouldn't use because he's against the Chinese government/CCP not the country as a whole). I also see no evidence that those other 148 hits are "simply quoting" the MFA. And adding three extra words to a lead sentence in order to be more factually correct does not make the line long, and the sentence flows perfectly fine with it. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 01:50, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

No, someone protesting against specific PRC government policies is not necessarily "anti-Chinese government". Moreover, being against the CCP (as in the Communist Party - not the government per se) is not specifically "anti-Chinese government", though obviously in practice they are synonymous as the PRC is a one-party dictatorship. Also, as an aside, Drew Pavlou has made no statements against the ROC government as far as I can see nor appears to be opposed to them in any way. But the real clincher here is that "anti-Chinese government activist" or whatever is a phrase used by vanishingly few sources, represents a fringe POV view, with the overwhelming majority of sources simply describing him as a "student","student activist" or "activist". Obviously his supporters would paraphrase a different way (i.e., "pro-human rights", "pro-democracy" etc.) and there are sources supporting that paraphrasing - but why paraphrase at all when the majority of sources support an NPOV term? Finally, we don't have "148 sources calling him "anti-China"", we have 148 sources using the phrase somewhere in the article (often in a quote from the MFA or Chinese consulate, or as a descriptor of protests/comments, or very often not even in the article itself but in a side-bar).

PS - a GNews search for "Drew Pavlou" + "Human rights" returns 205 result. A search for "Drew Pavlou" + "Democracy" returns 219 hi\ts. Again, it looks like your not bothering to investigate any alternative paraphrasing, but instead trying to justify the paraphrasing you already decided on. Why paraphrase at all when simply saying "activist" or "student activist" is so much easier, NPOV, and supported? FOARP (talk) 10:05, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Are you seriously trying to say that someone isn't an "anti-Chinese government activist" on the sole basis that they're only against some, not all, Chinese government policies, despite the fact that we've already inferred that the majority of sources say that he is? Also, most of the sources do say anti-Chinese government, not anti-CCP, and as you said, they're pretty much synonymous. Also, not sure if you missed the memo, but Taiwan is not China - it's rather absurd to say that he's not an anti-Chinese government activist because he's only against China's government, not Taiwan's (not to mention against WP consensus). And it isn't used by a "vanishingly few sources" - it's used explcitly, or "anti-Beijing" etc, by literally every ABC source, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and SBS. That's 13 sources out of 20, a majority. And again, I'm not saying to use anti-China. And using your justification, just because the term "human rights" or "democracy' is included in ~200 articles, that doesn't mean that they're about him. They could be quotes or commentary! ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 03:43, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

“They could be quotes or commentary!” - That’s my entire point. FOARP (talk) 06:31, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

With that logic then, seeking out statistical analysis based on Google searches isn't reflective, so we'll avoid that. Subsequently, calling out individual sources would be cherry picking and wouldn't be appropriate. This leaves us with the only option of using sources that are already included in the article, of which 13 of the 19 news sources (excluding UQ's response which doesn't give him a label, and Drew's tweet) say he is anti-Chinese government or a euphemism of such ("anti-Beijing" etc). ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 23:27, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

No, it means that the analysis you use should be relevant. You should check whether the term is actually being used in relation to the person you're writing about. Above, I've shown that not only is "activist" or "student activist" commonly used in articles about Pavlou - far more so that "anti-Chinese government activist" - but that when it is being used in these articles it is being used to describe to Pavlou (hence the majority of the first ten GNews hits for "Drew Pavlou" use that term to introduce him). This is not a surprise as there pretty much isn't anyone else involved in these articles that it could be describing. In contrast "anti-China", "democracy", "human rights" etc. are terms that might (depending on POV) be used about Pavlou or about other things discussed in stories about him. FOARP (talk) 08:25, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I think you need to appreciate that "student activist" and "anti-Chinese government" are not mutually exclusive. I've already said this a number of times: there's no question about if Pavlou's a student activist. But just because he's a student activist doesn't mean that he isn't an anti-Chinese government student activist. There is unanimous agreement amongst sources that he is a student activist, but the majority of sources (again, 13 out of 19) also describe him as anti-Chinese government. Just because the sources say "his anti-Chinese government protests" not "as an anti-Chinese Government protestor", that doesn't mean that we're ignoring the meaning - we follow semantics, not just superficial, surface level sentence structure. Again, fundamentally you're trying to say that someone who is protests against the anti-Chinese government isn't an anti-Chinese government protestor.

Focusing back in on this here, do you have any proper reason to object to "anti-Chinese government student activist"? Also, please stop hyper focusing and being absurd with your appeasement of Pavlou around terms. It's pretty damn obvious that the "interpretation" you removed here is him inciting a physical altercation - we call a spade a spade when it's pretty bloody obvious that it's a spade. If we were to be exchanging serious insults in real life, and I say "meet me outside the cafe, we'll see who the dog is c***", it's somewhat universally obvious that we would have a scuffle - I wouldn't be inviting you for some tea and biscuits, which is what you're suggesting Pavlou did almost. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 00:47, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

"the majority of sources (again, 13 out of 19) also describe him as anti-Chinese government" - They don't, that's your POV paraphrasing of what they're saying, one that focuses on what is being protested against rather than what is being supported. Based on the same facts a person with a different POV could call them "pro-democracy" or "pro-human rights". "fundamentally you're trying to say that someone who is protests against the anti-Chinese government isn't an anti-Chinese government protestor" - No, this your POV interpretation of the facts, not what the sources are telling us.

Basically this is the old "freedom fighter" v "terrorist" dichotomy and you're saying "they have to be a terrorist because that's my interpretation of the facts stated in the sources". NPOV means we don't call them either a "freedom fighter" or a "terrorist" if the sources overwhelmingly support another descriptor (in this case, "activist" or "student activist"). FOARP (talk) 10:55, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Again, you're basically protesting that descriptors of him and his actions, like:

• "Anti-China... student" and "opponent of the Chinese Government" ([1])
• "student activist critical of Beijing" and "criticising the Chinese Communist Party" ([2])
• "criticism of Beijing" ([3])
• "his criticism of the Chinese Government" ([4])
• "anti-China social media posts" ([5])
• "vocal critic of China" and "a student known for his criticism of Beijing" ([6])
• "anti-Beijing" and "his activism on campus against the Chinese Communist Party" ([7])
• "anti-Chinese Communist Party" ([8])
• "his activism on campus against the Chinese Communist Party" ([9])
• "he organised anti-Chinese Government protests" ([10])

... do not make him an anti-Chinese government student activist, which is just absolutely absurd to me. Since we're not making any progress here and you continually are reverting almost any edit I make, I've opened a discussion on the NPOV Noticeboard to get some actual answers: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard § Is there a NPOV issue in inferring a description based on behaviour for Drew Pavlou? ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 12:19, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

1) These aren't a representative sample of articles about Pavlou, just the sources presently being used on this page, 2) you're conflating criticism with opposition when these are in fact two separate and distinct things (you can be criticised even by a supporter), 3) your also conflating the CCP, Chinese policy, "Beijing", and the Chinese government, 4) even taking them as they are you can quickly find other descriptors in the same articles describing him differently. Taking them in turn:

• "his on-campus activism supporting Hong Kong"
• "pro-Hong Kong"
• "support of Hong Kong"
• "a fierce critic of the Chinese Communist Party and its human rights record in Hong Kong and Nepal, and treatment of Uighurs."

And so on. "Anti-China" or "Anti-Chinese" or whatever blatantly POV term it is so important for you to use is your POV, using it in the article would clearly not be NPOV. FOARP (talk) 16:22, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Please see the NPOV/N discussion for any ongoing efforts to resolve this. This conversation here is obviously just going in circles, so let's pull in some others who can give an uninvolved opinion on the matter. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 10:40, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

We don't know what the two allegations upheld by SDAC were

SDAC only upheld two of the eleven allegations per their statement. We don't know which of the things Pavlou was alleged to have done they were. Therefore the most that we can say about why Pavlou is suspended is what they have said (i.e., "serious misconduct"). We do not know (and should not state in the voice of wiki) whether these were the allegations of bullying, discrimination or whatever, or were different allegations. We only know that the original eleven allegations, of which nine were dismissed, included these allegations.

According to this source "Some of the allegations include discriminatory, bullying and harassing behaviour" (my emphasis), so it appears there were other allegations that did not include these. In that context, we cannot defend saying that these were the allegations under which he was suspended unless another source can be produced confirming that these were the allegations that were upheld. FOARP (talk) 10:45, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Perfectly happy with saying it was described as "serious misconduct". That wording is used by both the disciplinary board and SDAC, so I've updated it as such. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 03:47, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Article is extremely long compared to notability of subject

Too much minor detail, politicized in various directions. Should be much shorter. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 21:52, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I think there's just a lot of minor but important details to cover. Pavlou's been involved in so many different things (protesting, suspension, appeal, allegations of corruption/collusion, case against the Chinese consul-general, case against Varghese and Hoj [both civil and CCC]), that it's almost impossible to have a concise article about it all. ItsPugle (please ping on reply)

TBH I think the issue is that people have seen fit to put a lot of he-said-she-said stuff into the section on his suspension. There's even a long sentence on allegations which it's not clear were even part of the suspension case in there. I don't know why the verbatims are necessary. FOARP (talk) 21:33, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

They aren't "important details" if the underlying events and person aren't all that notable. Clearly it is important to Someone to document all this trivia in detail, maybe due to COI. From an uninvolved outside point of view most of the stuff here is well below the threshold for inclusion in an encyclopedia. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 03:18, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Pavlou is somewhat notable. He's been called a "free speech martyr" by the Australian Financial Review, organised a protest that became violent (and was broadcast about across the entire nation) about Hong Kong versus China, tried to sue the most senior Chinese government official in Australia, tried to get the corruption watchdog to investigate two prominent scholars and university executives, and is now suing one of the most significant universities in the world for A$3.5 million... If you consider Pavlou to be not notable, then the right thing would be to start a deletion discussion, not try to minimise article content. And following the prose length guidelines, the article is well under any threshold for removal or division (18kb versus the 50kb consensus just be considered for splitting). As per the relevance policy, only absolutely tangential information (a paragraph about light bulbs on a tiger article or information about the England in the English language article) should be removed. As always, if there is blatant COI or NPOV issues, address them, but removing allegations because there's "too many" isn't justification enough. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 03:33, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Stuff internal to the university that doesn't actually make the newspapers is trivia, e.g. in the lead that he was a "student senator", or the details of the university report beyond the fact that he was suspended (if that made the papers). And so on --- this is just an absurd level of detail compared to the level of coverage. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 03:54, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

The UQ Senate is the governing body of all of UQ, so it's a worth inclusion in positioning Pavlou's history and importance within the University. And again, there's plenty of coverage about his suspension - just have a look at all the sources. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 09:15, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

The Weekend Australian source

Hello everyone. The The Weekend Australian source can be accessed fully, but in order to do it you must navigate through Google Search (otherwise you get a paywall), by searching the actual article and opening it from the Google Search's results. For me it came at the top of the results when i searched for "The boy who kicked the hornet’s nest Drew Pavlou". I am sharing this in case someone wants to validate my recent edits, but also edits of other people who used the same source. Demetrios1993 (talk) 22:32, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

@Demetrios1993: Thanks, I didn't know that hack! Just a note, but I've restored this article to the previous version. A very significant portion of what you added seems to have been directly copied word-for-word from that The Australian article, which is a legal issue as per the copyright violations policy. Stuff like having block quotes for date of birth stuff isn't necessary either - an in-text <ref>{{cite web}}</ref> reference is more than enough. Similarly, we just need to be careful about what we're including - the fact that Pavlou's grandparents owned a fruit-and-veg shop is somewhat tangential (and being "a proud Greek Cypriot" is a slight neutral point of view and weasel word issue). ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 05:01, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

@ItsPugle: So, because an article might be behind a paywall (assuming it is, because i wouldn't describe Google Search navigation a hack), does this mean we cannnot use it for extracting information? It seems unreasonable to me. Even if we cannot added it as a source due to copyright, we can still come to a mutual editing consensus and validate that much of what i shared is cited there (you went and read the article i presume) and could be included (absent the quotes that you don't find appropriate) even without adding the source. Wikipedia is full of unsourced material, i don't think we can have a problem when we can all go and validate the information as described above. Personally i don't think there should be a problem with the source, because it is widely accessed through Google, and after all we will only share some sections (not largely as copy/pastes that i did originally). Indeed, what i shared was highly copied and pasted, not wholly though. Furthermore, i don't find the fact that his grandparents owned a fruit-and-veg shop being tangential but relative to his family's background. The "proud Greek Cypriot" designation was a copy/paste designation after all and can be left out, no problem with that. How about if i come in contact with Drew himself and agrees on adding relative information from the The Weekend Australian source? Can't the article's very subject (Drew Pavlou) be considered as a direct source of information also? Would this count? Last, you took everything i edited out. The date of birth once again is shared by Drew Pavlou himself on tweets he has made on his personal Twitter account. I also added that as a source and you reverted it. Last, i find his date of birth parallelization to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests as very relative and worth mentioning. Demetrios1993 (talk) 08:52, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

@ItsPugle: Let me also add, just as i mentioned in the article's history, that articles with a paywall aren't excluded as sources per Wikipedia:Verifiability#Access_to_sources. So, even if it is copyrighted and behind a paywall, we can still add the relevant information in an altered form (not copy/paste), and the actual source as a reference. Verifiability of the source isn't even an issue in our case, so what's the problem, just the copy/paste aspect? Demetrios1993 (talk) 10:03, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

@ItsPugle: Ok mate. I just sat down and tried to make an altered version. I would like your opinion before i am to make the edit, in order to avoid back and forth reverts. Here is the full paragraph i am thinking of entering.

Drew Pavlou's parents are Greek Cypriots from Larnaca. His paternal grandparents migrated to Australia in the 1960s and originally carried the surname Themistocles before changing it to Pavlou. His family soon made its way in their new country, starting fruit-and-vegetables shops, hairdressing salons and a restaurant on the Gold Coast, where Drew was born to father Nick and mother Vanessa, on June 4th 1999. He has parallelized his date of birth to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, as it coincides with the 10th anniversary of the protests to the day. Two years after his birth the family moved to Brisbane. He completed his high school education at Villanova College, and has admitted of having had a difficult relationship with authority. His grandmother’s brother was a fighter with Greek nationalist guerrilla organization EOKA, and was killed during the Cyprus Emergency. Furthermore, a great-grand­father on his mother's side was imprisoned by the Nazis in World War II and survived concentration camps.

There are some points that cannot be written in any other way i can think of. The above paragraph also includes the sentences of the current version. What do you think? Demetrios1993 (talk) 18:23, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

@Demetrios1993: Thanks for getting back to me. My revert was primarily on the grounds of being word-for-word copied from The Weekend Australian, which is a legal issue for the Wikimedia Foundation, and the fact that the information was largely tangential (not relevant) to Pavlou himself.

1. Copyright and the use of The Weekend Australian and Pavlou

There's absolutely nothing wrong with using a source that's behind a paywall, although I see it as a bit of a curtesy to use open/free-access sources when possible. Regardless of how we as editors can accept information and assertions as supported by evidence, there's a significant requirement to include appropriate referencing for all statements we make. Verifiability is a fundamental tenet of Wikipedia's neutrality and quality of content, so not including sources is somewhat out of the question. Similarly, using Pavlou himself as a source is quite a substantial issue in maintaining Wikipedia's independence. Not only is personal correspondence unverifiable, but it undermines the neutrality of Wikipedia, is a conflict of interest, and can easily become a mechanism for Pavlou to frame himself in this article however he likes.

1. Tangential information"'

Really, the inclusion of facts like Pavlou's grandparents owned a fruit and veg shop or that the great-grandfather was persecuted by Nazi Germany is a solid like 180° digression from himself. I think that we can keep a fair chunk of what you're written (thank you!), but some of the stuff about his grandparents and even his parents are a bit far fetched. We really need to focus on information that would have been formative for him, not writing an entire family history. How do you feel about this:

Pavlou's family are Greek Cypriots from Larnaca District, Cyprus, migrating to Australia in the 1960s to open a number of hospitality and retail shops on the Gold Coast in Queensland. He was born on 4 June 1999, something that he has linked to the end of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. At two-years-old, Pavlou's family moved to Brisbane, where he would then go on to complete high school at Villanova College, admitting to having a dissent for authority from a young age.

Of course, we'll need citations and all that throughout, making sure we're not including any original research (particularly with the Tiananmen square stuff and struggling with authority - that'll need secondary sources). Since he's relatively young, there's not too much to include (although we could probably include that he was studying a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Philosophy (source).

Thanks for what you've done! (Oh, and just a little note but we're using Australian English in this article since Pavlou is Australian) ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 09:19, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@ItsPugle: No misunderstanding and thanks for your contribution. I am ok with your version, but i think at the very least the EOKA part should also be included, as it is in the current article, since it appears of being a factor in how his personality evolved. How about this following version (i also included your BA in Philosophy suggestion)?

Pavlou's family are Greek Cypriots from the Larnaca District of Cyprus, migrating to Australia in the 1960s to open a number of hospitality and retail shops on the Gold Coast in Queensland. He was born on 4 June 1999, something that he has linked to the end of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. At two-years-old, Pavlou's family moved to Brisbane, where he would then go on to complete high school at Villanova College, admitting to having a dissent for authority from a young age. He was then admitted to the University of Queensland where he is currently studying for a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. His grandmother’s brother was a fighter with Greek nationalist guerrilla organization EOKA, and was killed during the Cyprus Emergency.

Concerning the Tiananmen part needing additional sources, are these two additional related quotes ok for now, 2nd source and 3rd source? Demetrios1993 (talk) 12:02, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@ItsPugle: Other than his BA in Philosophy, he is also studying History and English Literature at the University of Queensland, https://drewpavlou.com/bio/. How would you include that? They seem as extracurricular courses to me. Demetrios1993 (talk) 12:22, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@Demetrios1993: No worries, that sounds great! Since the only source for his studying of History and English Literature is his bio, and they're extracurricular, I think we can leave that out. Quick thing, but he currently is suspended from UQ, so we should say: He was then admitted to the University of Queensland [no need for a link to UQ] where he was studying for a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Philosophy before his suspension. Once this suspension expires at the beginning of Semester 1 next year, we'll then update this with any new information :) ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 03:37, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@ItsPugle: Yeah, i did notice that he was suspended for one semester and i was contemplating how should i write it. I thought that since it was just one semester and he was still a student (albeit suspended), "currently" would be ok, but your suggestion is more accurate. So, we have the following:

Pavlou's family are Greek Cypriots from the Larnaca District of Cyprus, migrating to Australia in the 1960s to open a number of hospitality and retail shops on the Gold Coast in Queensland. He was born on 4 June 1999, something that he has linked to the end of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. At two-years-old, Pavlou's family moved to Brisbane, where he would then go on to complete high school at Villanova College, admitting to having a dissent for authority from a young age. He was then admitted to the University of Queensland where he was studying for a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Philosophy before his suspension. His grandmother’s brother was a fighter with Greek nationalist guerrilla organization EOKA, and was killed during the Cyprus Emergency.

Is "studying for a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Philosophy before his suspension." or "studying for a Bachelor of Arts major in Philosophy, before his suspension." more correct though? To me the second seems more familiar. Demetrios1993 (talk) 12:45, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@Demetrios1993: My thinking is that it's probably "majoring" since Pavlou's in the process of getting a major in Philosophy. So, it'd would be "John Smith has a major in Psychology" (current verb), "John Smith majored in Psychology" (past verb), and "Smith is majoring in Psychology" (present participle). ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 05:16, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

@ItsPugle: Yeah, i see what you mean. Ok, i think it's ready, unless you want to add anything more in it. Demetrios1993 (talk) 10:10, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

@Demetrios1993: All good! Thanks for your collaboration here :) ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 04:55, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/how-drew-pavlous-university-of-queensland-protest-enraged-china-and-started-a-free-speech-battle/news-story/82f5fd86413844c724e64322b11abb69. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 05:01, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

@ItsPugle: With all due respect. Ok, my mistake of having included mostly material that was copied and pasted. Instead of writing all these characters though, couldn't you have helped by rephrasing my edit to an appropriate version? After all, everything i shared was/is cited and can be verified by anyone through Google Search navigation, which bypasses the source's paywall. And since you observed the copy/paste error on my part, it means you have also read the article and verified the information. You also didn't just revert my edits that pertained to the The Weekend Australian source, but also material from another source such as a Drew Pavlou's tweet from his personal Twitter account, that has since been readded. For the rest let's find a common consensus. I am not trying to be rude, nor cheat. Only trying to contribute honestly, and have people reverting edits without even going through everything, especially when they are experienced editors. This happened with another experienced editor also yesterday, for a totally different reason. He reverted my whole same edit, and claimed that i didn't provide sources for Drew's date of birth, and that i was violating the privacy of personal information, while at the same time i had provided the aforementioned tweet as a source, in which Pavlou openly disclosed his date of birth in a proud manner, along with the The Weekend Australian source which mentioned the year of his birth as well. Demetrios1993 (talk) 11:03, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Declined QCCC investigation in lead

Hey Crispus. Just wanted to leave a note about your revert of me mentioning Pavlou's application to the state's peak corruption body in the lead. That content, that the QCCC rejected Pavlou's application because there is no evidence was added way back in September last year by another editor and has gone through a number of rounds (including NPOV edits), so I'm just wondering why you think there's is a new NPOV issue here? The lead lacked balance, only citing how Pavlou claimed inappropriate relationships (I.e. corruption) between universities in Australia and foreign governments, so adding that the QCCC found no evidence actually helps to balance out the lead, not create an NPOV issue. Since you didn't include any reasoning and the content has happily been there for almost a year and has gone through several NPOV revisions to get to its neutral state, I've reverted your removal since I would consider the status quo to be its inclusion, but if you object, feel free to revert my re-addition. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 04:33, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that adding information about Pavlou's application should be left out the lead, per se, but the revisions as you wrote them gave undue weight to the school's allegations, and did nothing to address other view points. If you can rework what you included to give an overview of the issue concisely that addresses all sides of the issue, then that would work. Otherwise, it definitely is too-one sided to stay as it is.

That being said, I think that something should be added in giving the school's side of the issues that Pavlou was campaigning against. However, the issues and the suspension of Pavlou should both be handled as separate issues as much as possible, preferably giving both sides perspectives on all of these issues, as well as any other relevant third-party perspectives.

Crispus (talk) 04:47, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

@Crispus: Would you mind explaining exactly what you mean by "give undue weight to the school's allegations"? UQ didn't allege anything of Pavlou, and I'm pretty sure the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry (HPI) has nothing to do with what we're talking about here (or anything to really do with Pavlou, since it was the Disciplinary Board and the UQ Senate/SDAC which took action over Pavlou's conduct). The stakeholders here for the QCCC investigation are:

• Pavlou - lodged a request with QCCC alleging Varghese and Hoj partook in corrupt conduct
• QCCC - rejected Pavlou's request, citing no evidence to support that claim
• Varghese and Hoj, through UQ - subject of the request, "pleased by the results"

There's no real other way than what we already have to describe it, unless you want to try drafting an alternative? ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 05:14, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

"[H]e was suspended from the University of Queensland for serious misconduct relating to harassment of staff and students." I don't know what to say, that sentence in and of itself fails my sniff test for NPOV. If you'd like I'll try and rewrite this section and make it more factually neutral in a way that best represents the various viewpoints that exist in a concise manner, because the way it was written before simply failed to do so.

Crispus (talk) 05:25, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think it belongs in the lead. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:12, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

@Crispus: Okay, that's not what I am primarily talking about here (which is the QCCC statement in the lead which you removed), but that wording and expression already was discussed months ago and had a developed consensus both here and on WP:NPOV/N. There's no real other way to write it - he was accused of harassing staff and students, the university provided evidence to the disciplinary board, who found him guilty of harassment alongside other actions of misconduct, he appealed to SDAC, SDAC upheld the harassment charged but dismissed most of the others. Using "accused" or "alleged" would undermine the fact that both the student conduct board, the appellate body and the UQ Senate found him guilty of harassing staff and students - this logic is the backbone of conventions like WP:KILLINGS. In the time between the charge from UQ and his hearing, that's when it was alleged, but after being found guilty and having that upheld in appellate 'courts', it's not alleged anymore. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 03:18, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

The suspension deserves one sentence in the lead section and that's it. As already discussed above we don't actually know what he was suspended for, so we should not say that is was for harassment. I think it would be fair even to say that he was "controversially suspended".

The article as presently written includes too much in the way of he-said-she-said verbatims that should probably be deleted. FOARP (talk) 15:37, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I disagree. Pavlou's notability comes from the fact that he brought his suspension into the public eye, and used it as his political mechanism - without his suspension, there is very little to say about him. And we do know what he was suspended for: serious harassment of students and staff, online and in-person. And "controversially" suggests some part of opinion or other subjective basis for his suspension, something which was confirmed not to be the case by UQ and SDAC, as well as Pavlou by way that his appeal had nothing to do with the facts of the case, but rather the perceived harm of his behaviour. And yeah, I agree that there's a lot of he-said-she-said, but unfortunately that's the only sources we have - previous editors have insisted on having attributions for pretty much everything, and while I don't agree with them, it's better to have that than to misrepresent the circumstances etc. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 10:25, 23 July 2021 (UTC)