Talk:Steele dossier

Held off on this for nearly 3 years - I whisper Blumenthal, Blumenthal, Blumenthal

This violates our WP:BLP policy. If there are specific concerns that can be documented by reference to reliable sources, they may be stated below SPECIFICO talk 20:39, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Now that the lead debate has stabilized after years of poor craftmanship and total lack of read of the press bias. The second dossier got buried because by the time it emerged, it was clear in the public sphere what both were, drafts of opposition research, of poor and repitiouse quality. That the media went with the first as fact for another year and buried the existence of the second is interesting in the arc of a bogus news story. How to communicate that to a reader who does not understand the Mainstream Media feedback loop via the Clinton world. In 2016 terms.... Blumenthal is the Clintons in the dark toad, who gives the NYT the whisper preview of hit and feeds other whispers to the Clintons. Mooks team would edit the hit, in a now familiar feedback loop with the NYT. James Carvel pounds the hit into sand with the old line media as the hit breaks into so many pieces that its creditability is suspect but it has 2000 references in the medai already, but James is the one with creditability who puts the story in press epoxy. There seems to be a FBI, DNC and social media component that is external to the Steele dossier, yes Frenchman, we don't talk about that yet....another 3 years away in wiki time. Connection to Christopher Steele and the second Steele Dossier "Journalist and former Clinton aide Cody Shearer had created a so-called second dossier that was filled with notes from his conversations journalists and other sources. Shearer gave these notes to Blumenthal and several other journalists. Blumenthal passed on the notes to Jonathan Winer at the State Department, who had a previous relationship with Christopher Steele. In September 2016 Blumenthal discussed Steele's report with Winer and told him that the information was similar to information he had received from Shearer. Winer then gave the notes to Steele, who then passed them on to the FBI in October and said it came from a friend of the Clintons." Needs Expansion. 2601:248:C000:3F:DC09:68E3:B469:8138 (talk) 15:51, 18 December 2022 (UTC) I was tempted to just delete this section as a partisan, conspiratorial, violation of WP:NOTFORUM, but I want to investigate and exhaust any missed opportunities. If you can write more specifically, without the partisan views, please provide suggested wording, with the RS we can use to back it up. What do you have? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:58, 18 December 2022 (UTC) I was reminded of Tom Lehrer's 'I got it from Agnes' by all the allusion and handing from one person to another. How about just getting rid of all the aspersions? NadVolum (talk) 19:00, 18 December 2022 (UTC) Yes, without anything new in RS since 2018 about Max Blumenthal and the dossier, we're left with Blumenthal's attempts to cover up his role by going full conspiracy mode in his tweets, which seem to imply that the focus on the proven Russian interference is wasted effort or something like that. He seems to be a "Russiagate denialist" now. That's all I can find, and among my myriad Google alerts is this "blumenthal steele dossier" alert. It's been a long time since that was triggered, and nothing in a RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:22, 18 December 2022 (UTC) Wrong man. It was Max's father Sidney Blumenthal. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:31, 22 December 2022 (UTC) What I see here is WP:BLP violations. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:58, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

"Research funded by conservative website" is extraneous, unclear, and ultimately confusing

Both the title and the content of the section "Research funded by conservative website" are confusing.

Yes, Fusion GPS had done prior Trump oppo research on behalf of The Free Beacon. But given that none of that research formed the basis for, or was ever included in the Steele Dossier—its inclusion in this article is questionable. Worse, the presentation of the information is painfully convoluted and ultimately opaque.

The only rationale I can see for including it is that the Steele Dossier was incorrectly attributed in part to the Beacon-funded research—an error by the AP (and others) that was subsequently corrected.

Assuming that is the reason for including it, then it could be made a lot clearer—from the title on. My suggestions would be:

1. Change the title to something like "Misattribution to research funded by The Free Beacon"
2. State clearly at the beginning, in Wikivoice, that a misattribution occurred and that none of the research funded by the Beacon ended up in the dossier (right now, that is only stated in the Beacon's press release, near the end of the section).
3. Greatly trim and streamline the section—there's no need to go into any detail or length about the research done, since it's irrelevant to the dossier (and thus to the article). It might be appropriate to the articles about Fusion GPS or the Free Beacon, but not to this one.

Look forward to any and all thoughts and collaboration—thanks! ElleTheBelle 20:37, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

I disagree, it's relevant, not misattributed. Fusion GPS was originally hired by Washington Free Beacon, that is relevant background, and it did form the basis for the subsequent investigation. Please provide a citation for otherwise or the AP correction you say was corrected. I also oppose trimming or streamlining this. Andre🚐 21:48, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi ElleTheBelle. We always welcome suggestions for improvement, and you touch on some good points. Let me start by explaining the reasoning behind that section. It is part of the "History" section, and sources that discuss it always do so in the context of the dossier, hence it all belongs here. It is important prehistory to the dossier, even though none of it ended up in the dossier. The confusion was a big problem in the media, and we clear that up here. Can we do it better? The fact you brought your concerns here indicates that we should, so we'll try.

I have tried to rework some wordings, split paragraphs up into smaller bites, alter some headings, and changed some levels, all to make it clearer. I hope it's better now. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:55, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

See also section

I removed a link, Trump: The Kremlin Candidate?, that is already linked in the article. Not sure why this edit was reverted with the edit summary that it isn't linked? Malerooster (talk) 18:11, 25 February 2023 (UTC) ps, I removed 2 more links that are linked below the section. If an editor wants to go against MOS, that is fine, just state why here so it can be discussed, thank you. --Malerooster (talk) 18:15, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

None of the links in a template count as article content, that's why your deletions are all wrong. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Can some of these links be added to the further reading section? Ideally, there shouldn't be ANY see also links. --Malerooster (talk) 18:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Are you joking?

1. Maybe. Sometimes a listing in the See also section can be moved to the Further reading section. (Any nominations?)
2. BS. There is no such policy. See also sections are sometimes quite large (in excess of 30 links).

A See also section is for "tangentially" related stuff, not necessarily "directly" related. A book on a topic other than the dossier, but with some good chapters about it, would qualify for the See also section, not necessarily the Further reading section. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

I have restored the status quo version per BRD. Let's see the results of this discussion before making any changes. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:47, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

That's fine. I wouldn't say BS though, since many high-quality and comprehensive articles do not have a See also section. I know this is a poorly written article, but I am sure you agree that we can do better than the current status quo. --Malerooster (talk) 22:30, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Indeed! I wholly agree about improvement. Any suggestions are always welcome. Since you write "poorly written", I suspect you can be more specific. That would be most helpful. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:36, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

I can't help you. --Malerooster (talk) 22:40, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Unsupported claim.

In the section on "Two Research operations and confusion between them", the following claim is made with no supporting documentation, other than claims made by Free Beacon themselves (which doesn't even come close to Wikipedia's sourcing requirements):

"The first operation, from October 2015 to May 2016, was domestic research funded by The Washington Free Beacon based on public sources, none of which ended up in the dossier. It was later misattributed as research for what became the Steele dossier."

There is absolutely no doubt that the Steele dossier included publicly sourced information. There has never been independent evidence to demonstrate that the research funded by free Beacon did not also end up in the dossier, and there is no reliable reporting that states this. It is known that the Free Beacon research did include Trump-Russia links, and it would be surprising if the more comprehensive (but perhaps problematic) later efforts included none of this information.

Battling McGook (talk) 08:16, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Battling McGook , I can see how this is confusing. That section is a lead for the two following subsections, and they are well-sourced. Do you have a suggestion on how we can avoid this happening again? (This is the first time anyone has said anything.) I have now tweaked the headings and bolded the operations. Maybe that will help. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:35, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

It's not merely confusing. This claim: "none of which ended up in the dossier" is not supported by any source as far as I can tell. If no source backs this up, it must be removed. Battling McGook (talk) 01:43, 21 March 2023 (UTC)