Talk:Charles Moses (sprinter)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 15:56, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that after having fabricated claims of participation at the 1980 Summer Olympics, Charles Moses actually competed at the 1984 Olympics?

• Source: story on fabricating Olympic participation, actual participation at '84 Olympics

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Fortnight (song)
  • Comment: To complete QPQ within 24 hours. Two days late, hoping for an IAR exemption per WP:DYKG: The seven-day limit can be extended for a day or two upon request.

5x expanded by Habst (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 330 past nominations.

BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:06, 17 April 2025 (UTC).

• Thank you for nominating this as I didn't do it in time. I'm not sure if it would be a conflict for me to review it because I did the expansion? --Habst (talk) 22:09, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
  • Yeah, given that you expanded it, it'd be considered a conflict to review it. BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:35, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• Article is new enough (given a 2-day leeway on the seven day criterion), long enough, article looks good on quality and presentation, hook is cited, short enough, and interesting. QPQ done. My only question is around the licensing of the image - it was uploaded based on the lack of copyright notice, and indeed there doesn't appear to be one on the page the image is from, but there is one on the first page of the newspaper. I'm not well versed enough in that specific license template to know if this qualifies that particular image as being copyrighted, so I'll see if I can get a second opinion. Sam Walton (talk) 11:41, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
  • Asked on Commons. Sam Walton (talk) 16:33, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
    • The answer on Commons is that this image is, in fact, copyrighted, and therefore needs to be removed from the article before this DYK can proceed. Sam Walton (talk) 17:38, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
      • Cut the image. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:58, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
        • Thanks, in that case this looks good! Sam Walton (talk) 09:38, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
      • My mistake on the image, I did not see that copyright notice on the front page. Thank you for catching that.--Habst (talk) 18:43, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• Highlighting his untruthfulness violates WP:DYKHOOKBLP. Isn't there something more positive we can say about him? RoySmith (talk) 15:28, 4 May 2025 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure it unduly ("to an unwarranted degree; inordinately") focuses on a negative aspect; (i) it mentions that he did later compete at the Olympics, and (ii) the majority of significant coverage of him was related to his Olympic claims (given that he's arguably best "known" for that, I don't think its necessarily undue to have a hook based on it). Can you think of a better hook? BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:45, 4 May 2025 (UTC)
    • Reading the article, I don't see anything obvious that would make a better hook. Which leads me to believe we should just pass on running this one. We've got more nominations than we can handle; no need to contort ourselves to run marginal articles. RoySmith (talk) 18:48, 4 May 2025 (UTC)
      • What do you mean "contort ourselves to run marginal articles"? I don't think its fair to just fail articles because "we've got more than we can handle". BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:29, 4 May 2025 (UTC)
        • I would like to run the subject but not before the actual article itself is given a good check in line with sources. With every other sentence in the article saying "claimed" or similar, it does read like Wikipedia believes Moses to be a perpetual liar and - at that point - what would we even have a bio for. There are probably quite a few of these statements that can be written as factual or at least written with attribution (and importantly without the wikivoice hedging). Also see WP:CLAIMED. Like, yeah, if information is only attested in one source it may seem 'safer' to hedge, but if it's presented as truth, and the source is sound, we can treat the information as V. As written, I would not be happy to put the article on MP, as much as the subject seems suitable. Kingsif (talk) 02:10, 11 May 2025 (UTC)
          • @Kingsif: So, do you think that the hook is alright, its just that the article needs some reworking? Or do you think the hook is an issue as well? BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:57, 20 May 2025 (UTC)
            • @BeanieFan11: The hook is probably fine, I don't really see any neutrality difference between "fabricated claims" and e.g. "falsely claimed" in a short hook sentence, i.e. the hook doesn't read as passing judgement and focusing more on actually competing. Kingsif (talk) 21:15, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
              • @Kingsif: I tried to tone down the "claimed" wording a bit; do you think that's better? BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:32, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
                • @BeanieFan11: Not necessarily, WP:CLAIMED is also about tone, not just the word. Replacing "X claimed" with "According to X" or similar is not really changing anything, it is still a signpost to cast doubt. It depends on the sources - how much they cast doubt or treat narratives as truthful - as well as generally how benign or significant the information is. In some cases, if a source does cast doubt on the only version of events, it may be an improvement to write about the info as factual and then outright say that the source could not confirm the veracity or whatever. I know this is nitpicking for what's effectively an MOS issue, even one pervasive throughout the article, but it's also one that intersects with BLPPOV - don't want to link from the MP to an article written as if it's constantly winking at a reader that WP thinks the subject's more a liar than a runner. Kingsif (talk) 21:41, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
                  • @Kingsif: Did a little more work. Now the only 'claimed' or 'said' statements, aside from the Olympics parts (which I think are a valid use of 'claimed' given that they were shown to be false), are a transfer which Moses said was borne out of necessity due to ISU classes conflicting with his training schedule (which seems reasonable), He told the Post-Bulletin ... that he had run 45.28 seconds for 400 m at a California meet in 1979, though his fastest confirmed time was 48.2 seconds during the spring 1980 season for Rochester CC, when he competed while dealing with an ankle injury (IMO a valid use of "told", given that sources cast doubt upon his 45.28 time), and Moses said his money and belongings were stolen on an airplane, but the Rochester CC foreign student advisor claimed he was an undocumented immigrant who was mistakenly granted admission. Should I change any of those? BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:54, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
                    • @BeanieFan11: I am not completely happy with it, especially with more emphasis (an entire paragraph and greater structural prominence) given to the Olympics he didn't actually run in, but for an all-in-one stub it is probably fine. Reinstating approval per source integrity check, satisfactory article, and the rest of Sam Walton's review. Kingsif (talk) 22:10, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
                      • Comment. I expanded the article slightly, describing other aspects of his career and life, and added more references which make it clear that this fabrication was a huge turning point in his life...but that he also moved on from it. Caution was totally warranted here but the hook checks out and the BLP offers a bit "more" now. Cielquiparle (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

As the now No. 2 contributor to this article, my !vote is to withdraw from DYK. This biography of a living person is more balanced now (please see Charles Moses (sprinter)). But you could also make an argument that his main claim to notability is essentially one event – his participation at the 1984 Olympics after falsely claiming that he competed at the 1980 Olympics – and that technically this is borderline WP:BLP1E. (And that's why no one can come up with any other hooks.) I am still grateful to BeanieFan11 for nominating this for DYK, because otherwise we might not have fixed the article. But in reviewing the article now, I do wonder if the kind thing to do is to nominate it for deletion. He went on to have a professional career and he would hardly want this one event from his past magnified in this way. @BeanieFan11, Habst, Kingsif, and RoySmith: Pinging. By the way, yes, I did remove a lot of extraneous detail (embellishments that were part of the original fabrication) as well as the somewhat speculative part about his immigration issues (which he obviously resolved in the end). Either way, even if the article is kept, don't run it for DYK. (Or, put it on the main page, and this will likely head straight to AfD.) (Or, take it to AfD first, then run if kept.) Cielquiparle (talk) 03:27, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

• Who's going to take this high-quality Olympics article to AFD once they see it on the main page, and why would anyone reject an otherwise satisfactory article on that basis? ("Yeah, everything's good, but someone may well take it to AFD if its featured so we shouldn't promote it") You only need two pieces of SIGCOV to meet GNG, and Tri-City Herald + Post Bulletin is just that. I don't understand this reasoning at all. BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:28, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Everything is not good. I'm saying it's better than before in terms of a more neutral point of view per WP:NPOV, but it still could be considered a violation of WP:BLP1E. Anyway I will remove myself from this discussion now. Happy for others to decide but I won't be defending this article at WP:ERRORS or AfD. Cielquiparle (talk) 03:39, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

I get what you're saying now. It sounds wishy-washy. If I want to nominate it for AfD, I should do so. If I'm not going to nominate it for AfD, I shouldn't use it as a reason to withdraw from DYK. So I am no longer using it as a reason to withdraw from DYK. I am simply saying, not every article needs to run on the main page, I actually don't agree that it was a high-quality article when it was nominated (or now for that matter), and it seems to give WP:UNDUE weight to a single incident in the living person's life, and we need to be mindful about overfocusing on the negative per WP:BLP. Cielquiparle (talk) 04:07, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree that not all articles are suitable to run at DYK, and would have no objections if someone was to reject the hook even based on my own concerns. However, if it did go to AfD I would !vote to keep, based on major tournament appearance as NATHLETE and his college/professional career achievements quelling 1E concerns. Kingsif (talk) 10:37, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

There is also the 1990 article about him a decade after the scandal (which avoids discussing the scandal), which I added to the article, and which helped to round out the biography (instead of overfocusing on the one incident). (In which he also...by the way...makes more claims about his times.) Cielquiparle (talk) 05:49, 28 May 2025 (UTC)