Talk:Marathon course-cutting

WP:BLP

This article strikes me as being a WP:BLP nightmare. Inclusion on this list is inherently negative, and potential candidates for inclusion are on the whole unlikely to be notable enough for an article in their own right. If the incident is an allegation rather than proven fact, then that is doubly concerning. If an incident is truly notable, then it would seem logical to include it in the article for that event, with no need for a separate list. I see that this has already been done in Boston Marathon. Alleged course cutting in a small event with a few hundred participants might make local news, but its hardly Ben Johnson. While these events are not criminal matters, I think WP:BLPCRIME may be of relevance here in terms of being analogous. Oldelpaso (talk) 20:27, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Edit war surrounding Mike Rossi

Blocks may be handed out if further reverts occur without discussion. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:15, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I think the evidence in Mike Rossi's case is/was overwhelming. Experts in the matter, ie. running coaches and race directors have weighed in and found the evidence conclusive that Mike Rossi has cheated. The fact the Lehigh Marathon did not disqualify Mike Rossi is inconsequential. Kip Litton wasn't DQd from every race that he was suspected of cheating either. That just shows incompetence on the Race Director's side, not the fact that Mike Rossi did not cheat. The entry about Mike Rossi clearly stated both sides of the story with sources and references. There is not a single source that stood up for Mike Rossi's side of the truth. I think the Rossi incident should stand and stay as is and shall only be updated if there is new information, evidence or performance surfaces. GregTakacs (talk) 21:21, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Weldon and Roger Johnson are respected and accomplished runners who have clearly proven Mike Rossi cheated. Removal of the Mike Rossi edits from this page from IPs instead of registered accounts indicate further obfuscation of the facts. The RD has refused to show any evidence to vindicate Rossi and refuses to communicate on this subject. It should be noted that Mike Rossi promoted himself with a viral message he posted on social media that resulted in national television interviews and some initial public support before the facts emerged as to his cheating. --iiagdtr 20:22, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

The sub-heading for "Marathon course-cutting" is entitled "Publicized incidents of disputed marathon results." If Mike Rossi's cheating at the Lehigh Valley Health Network Via Marathon does not meet the definition of "Publicized incidents of disputed marathon results", then I do not know what does. There have been numerous articles and stories written and aired about the cheating and disputed marathon results by the national, regional and local media. The cheating has been highly publicized and continues to be. In fact, Weldon and Roger Johnson, mentioned above, wrote an extensive and comprehensive article on the incontrovertible evidence against Rossi and have offered $100,000 to Mike Rossi if he can repeat his supposed race time. That is more money than a winner at most marathons receives.

In regards to the assertion that "Alleged course cutting in a small event with a few hundred participants might make local news, but its hardly Ben Johnson", I would add that the cheating by Rossi in the Lehigh Valley Health Network Via Marathon was done for sole purpose (which was clearly documented by Mike Rossi) of gaining entry (referred to as a BQ) into arguably the most prestigious marathon of them all, the Boston Marathon. Cheating by definition is inherently negative, so I am not sure why negativity is an issue. Inconvenient Veracity (talk) 14:37, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• I honestly don't think that the coverage is enough to warrant him being mentioned here. Much of his coverage centered upon him pulling his children from school. The cheating allegations were somewhat of an afterthought. I also need to note that so far these are just allegations and that nothing has been proven. We're not here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, as it looks like many of you are more interested in proving his guilt than anything else. If Rossi is still being discussed a few years from now, he can be added but so far I have to say that odds are high that it's likely that he won't be discussed. I also have to question the inclusion of some of the names on the list since the coverage for them is also relatively light, enough to where they wouldn't warrant an article on Wikipedia. I honestly think that this list should be restricted for people whose cheating (whether it remained "alleged" or was proven) was notable enough to warrant them having an article. There's a fairly bad habit of people adding things to Wikipedia because they happened recently and they think that because it received a smattering of coverage, that it absolutely has to be added. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• I'm going to bring this up at WP:BLP/N since this does bring up BLP concerns. Most of the coverage for a lot of the people on the list is fairly light and we need to take this into consideration: if these people don't have articles and it isn't notable enough to warrant adding it to the main article for the marathons, then why should they be added here? Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:22, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Much of Mike Rossi's initial coverage focused on pulling his children from school, but since the original allegation of cheating arose, the cheating has been the focus. With that said, one reason you may think much of the coverage centered on the school issue is that many times when anything is written about Mike Rossi, the writer invariably mentions the school issue or refers to him as the viral school letter dad giving the impression that pulling of children from school is the focus of the article. The same thing happens regarding professional athletes, politicians, celebrities, etc. Articles written about individuals in those categories almost always will mention the most salacious or infamous piece from their pasts even if it occurred one, five, ten or twenty years ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inconvenient Veracity (talk • contribs) 10:41, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• If the coverage is too light for inclusion in the marathon's article and the person does not warrant an article of their own, there's really no reason for them to be listed here. Furthermore, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and should not be used to report on the salacious details. It's actually pretty common for people to write about events, whether alleged or confirmed, and put them in excruciating detail... only for the event to either be edited down to a few sentences or even removed altogether since they pose a WP:BLP violation. Again, Wikipedia is not a place to be used to raise awareness over possible cheating and just because something was reported in the news does not automatically mean that it should be on Wikipedia. We're not a tabloid or a newspaper that reports on things as they happen. The site has to think in the long term and right now I just don't see where the coverage is heavy enough for an article or a mention elsewhere. I really think that right now you have this mentality that because a few places have talked about him and you think that he's almost certainly a cheater, that you have a moral obligation to make sure that this is recorded somewhere so that people can remember this because you want people to remember that he did something wrong. Thing is, Wikipedia doesn't work that way and ultimately this is just one of many people who is accused of something they likely did, but couldn't be entirely proven. It's a huge BLP issue, especially since so much of the push to include him seems to be to raise awareness. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:48, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I can't say that I disagree with most of what you said. However I think there are several key points that render the addition valid.

1. Mike Rossi's story does meet the sub-heading to the "T". His result was disputed by more people than any other one on the list with the possible exception of Kip Litton and Rosie Ruiz. The whole topic is obscure and unless you're a runner you would not know who Kip Litton or Mike Rossi is. You are probably more versed in Wikipedia and its written and unwritten rules, however I am far more familiar with running, marathon races and athletics in general than you.
2. His "alleged" cheating was publicized more than any other incident on the list mainly due to him being "Viral Marathon Dad". [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]
3. You might think that it was a only few obscure running sites and local media that ran the article about his alleged cheating but I think when Yahoo Sports, Men's Journal, and CBS picks up the story it is public interst and well publicized.
4. His actions even sparked articles that looked into cheating at races in general or commentaries from lawyers about effects of social media on going from fame to infamy (Also appeared in Michigan Lawyers Weekly).
5. He was offered $100,000 to repeat his performance from LetsRun. This made international news. No other person on that list ever received such an offer and most non-elite runners will never make that amount of money in their lifetime from running. He has one year to perform and collect on the money.
6. You also assume that this was my only contribution to Wikipedia and it's a personal vendetta. It is far from it. I made plenty of edits anonymously to various articles in sports and computer science I just chose to use my registered account for this particular case to differentiate myself from IP vandals who were confirmed to be Mike Rossi himself based on e-mails from the same IP address and he received a temporary ban. I did not create the Wikipedia entry, I did not even add Mike Rossi to the list, I simply expanded it and chose to put it back when someone deleted it.
7. I would also note that after the first round of edit warring the page was protected with the Mike Rossi incident left intact so there is at least one editor with authority who felt it had a place in the article.

Having said all this I think there are two issues here:

1. Should there be a list of "Publicized Incidents of Disputed Marathon Results"? I'm not Wikipedia expert so I don't know if this is something that should exist or not. If it should not then all of this should be removed from Wikipedia.
2. If there should be such a list, should Mike Rossi be added to said list? In my expert opinion as a sub-elite marathon runner, absolutely.GregTakacs (talk) 15:03, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• It's still fairly light in my opinion and we have to think about the whole WP:ONEEVENT thing, along with the issue of a BLP violation. This is a person who was non-notable enough for their own article. As far as the article retaining the content after an edit warring lock, this does not automatically mean that NeilN endorsed the material. This just meant that he protected it because the edit warring had grown too severe, something that is covered at WP:PP. Again, this should not be taken as his endorsement of the material's inclusion. In any case, my concern with you coming in with a bias is that you seem pretty gung ho to ensure that this is included somewhere. There have been editors that have signed up just to make sure that Wikipedia includes material that states that he is a cheater and when ultimately the decision at AfD was that not only was Rossi non-notable but that people were using the page to make thinly veiled (and not so thinly veiled as in the case of one person on the AfD talk page), people shifted gears to make sure that the whole "Rossi is a cheater" content was posted somewhere else. Wait a few years. If people are still talking about him years later, he can be re-added. Wikipedia is not a place to add something just because someone got a smattering of news coverage about alleged cheating, especially since it poses a huge legal concern for Wikipedia. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 13:10, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Reverted edits

@Kolektengo: Please do not re-add the content previously removed from the article. The reason why this was removed was because these posed huge BLP issues. Some of these incidents only received a smattering of coverage, others maybe a little more so but only for a shorter amount of time. This means that we have to worry about whether the coverage for this would be major enough to warrant inclusion. In cases where there's a possibility of it being harmful to the persons involved (ie, meaning that they could come back and potentially sue Wikipedia), inclusion in negative pages of this nature should be limited to people who would warrant their own article. There was a huge issue with people arguing for inclusion out of a WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS type of deal: that these people broke rules and as such, should be listed if they got any sort of news coverage. That's not what Wikipedia is for - we don't list everyone who may have allegedly (or confessed to) cheating, as that's considered to be a bit to indiscriminate. I'm going to ping @Collect: about this since they made some of the previous edits to the page. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 20:51, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

• Also pinging @NeilN: in case he may need to protect this again. I really see no reason to include this list on the article. It doesn't really help much and it's a huge issue when it comes to WP:ONEEVENT, WP:NCRIME, and WP:BLP, given that this is inherently negative. Whether or not they did anything is irrelevant - they could all be guilty, but if the coverage is too brief for an independent article then it shouldn't be listed here. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 21:05, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Correct. Collect (talk) 21:05, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Will be monitoring. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:38, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

• @LondonUltraRunner: I've removed the additions. The problem here was that the people were either already mentioned in the article or that the content was about specific people who did not have an article on Wikipedia. I've already covered this above, but this poses a big BLP issue. I'm going to ping NeilN and Collect on this as well. Long story short is that some of these can be seen as allegations and haven't been proven. For the ones who look to be pretty obvious and/or have confessed, we then have to consider if they're notable enough for their own article. If the answer is no, then they don't really warrant inclusion here and it'd still pose a BLP issue. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:03, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Tokyogirl79 See also Robert HP Young and Lisa Smith-Batchen. I understand a desire to "expose cheaters" but sometimes WP:BLP means that such edits are clearly against policy. I would not be too surprised if the new editor was one who has edited here in the past. Collect (talk) 10:57, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

• I thought about that as well, to be honest. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:08, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Removed content 4/21

@Collect, NeilN, and HangingCurve: I happened to notice that someone added unsourced content to the article and I then noticed the addition of other alleged cheating incidents by HangingCurve. HangingCurve, adding these names poses a BLP concern because if they're not notable enough for an article, then this poses whether or not a smattering of coverage would justify posting their name on Wikipedia. There's an issue here of if this would pose any real world harm to the individuals, who are otherwise considered to be relatively low profile persons. If either would be notable enough for an article then that would be something, but otherwise this is a case of a possible isolated incident. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 13:17, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I think they should be added in. For one thing, they were covered in very reliable sources. And these weren't alleged incidents–they were proven to have cheated via timing data. For now, anyway, I can restore the incidents without the names, since the incidents themselves were notable. It's not every day that a marathon winner is disqualified. HangingCurve^{Swing for the fence} 19:56, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Demur. Collect (talk) 14:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)