Talk:Roger Stone

Netflix documentary as a source

@49ersBelongInSanFrancisco: I'll raise the question about using Netflix as a source at WP:RS, it seems to me that it should be treated like a book. NadVolum (talk) 07:39, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

@NadVolum; appreciated, thanks. I'll join the discussion over there. 49ersBelongInSanFrancisco (talk) 04:34, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Lead image

File:Arrest of Roger Stone (cropped).jpg

Requesting that the lead image be changed to a recent picture taken by Gage Skidmore at this year's Turning Point Action Conference. The other image is a low quality copy from the Associated Press, which does not use a Creative Commons license. TaurusEmerald (talk) 16:57, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Stone and Assange

Two of my edits were recently reverted with the reason "revert bold changes by Burrobert. Please discuss on talk. Appears to change the meaning of what the sources say". My edits do not "change the meaning of what the sources say". They do change the meaning of what this Wikipedia page says and there is a good reason for that. It's fairly clear that the original text "change[d] the meaning of what the sources say" and the purpose of my edit was to ensure the text conformed to the source. Here are the details of the first reverted edit:

• "However" and "deny" are words to watch - this is basic editing: see wp:Words_to_watch
• First change: "However, two unnamed associates of Stone have alleged that he collaborated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign to discredit Hillary Clinton" -> “Two unnamed associates of Stone have alleged that Stone claimed to have had contact with Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign".

Compare this with what the source says: “one of two Stone associates who say Stone claimed to have had contact with Assange in 2016”. Spelling it out, the two associates do not say Stone collaborated with Assange. The associates say Stone claimed to have had contact with Assange. That's a big difference.

• Second change: "Stone and Assange have denied these claims". -> "WikiLeaks and Assange said they have never communicated with Stone. Stone said he could recall only one occasion on which he mentioned contact with Assange, and said that mention was made as a joke".

Compare this with what the source says: "WikiLeaks and Assange have also said they never communicated with Stone" and "He said he only recalled having one conversation with anyone in which he alluded to meeting the WikiLeaks founder — a comment he said he made as a joke to a long-winded Nunberg ... "It was a joke, a throwaway line to get him off the phone" ". Hopefully, that is also very clear.

Burrobert (talk) 04:02, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

1. Not really a substantial difference.

2. WP:MANDY.

Zaathras (talk) 04:20, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Too vague to mean anything. Where does Mandy fit in? If there is no difference, which I don't accept, why not change to my version? Burrobert (talk) 04:37, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

@Andrevan: Burrobert (talk) 04:58, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Since we know that Stone met and was in contact with Assange [1] we don't really need to give so much air to the idea that the meeting didn't happen. Some of your changes are innocuous but let's make sure we understand what the source says and what Stone says and don't substitute the latter for the former. Andre🚐 05:13, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

You have changed the discussion by introducing a source which does not appear to be mentioned in this page. If we are going to use the sources currently cited in this page then my comments above still stand. My responses to the new source are:

• The text on our page is referring to contact "during the 2016 presidential campaign". The new source says "court documents from the federal investigation of Mr. Stone, released late Monday, show that at least after the election, the two men had maintained a personal relationship" and "The records shed no new light on whether Mr. Stone, 67, directly communicated with Mr. Assange before the election".
• The new source does not say "Stone met and was in contact with Assange". It talks about an "exchange of messages". Burrobert (talk) 06:01, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not "changing the discussion" by introducing a new source. I reverted your bold edits, now we're discussing a possible constructive path toward a resolution. Therefore we should discuss our understanding of the material. My understanding is that Stone met with and had contact with Assange, and then said otherwise on several occasions (understandably). We can set that aside for a moment, but let's be clear that Stone did have contact with Assange, and we can figure out how to phrase that. Andre🚐 06:16, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

"Stone met with and had contact with Assange". Has anyone said Stone met with Assange? Burrobert (talk) 06:28, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

He was found guilty for lying to Congress[2] for meeting with Wikileaks and he also was in close contact with Trump about Wikileaks[3] Andre🚐 06:34, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Actually, you may be right that it was only contacts with Wikileaks, not a physical meeting, but he still lied about it on multiple occasions. Andre🚐 06:36, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I think we should use the term "had contact with" then rather than "met", which is likely to be misinterpreted as a physical meeting. Incorporating your new source into the article, here is a suggested wording for the lead. It contains a few changes to more accurately reflect the source being used. In particular it is more careful about the times when the various statements and supposed events occurred:

In 2018, two associates of Stone alleged that Stone claimed to have had contact with Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign. In response, Assange told the Washington Post that he had not met with Stone in Spring 2016 and Wikileaks said it had had no contact with Stone. Stone said he could recall only one occasion on which he mentioned meeting with Assange, and said that mention was made as a joke. Court documents released in 2020, showed Stone and Assange exchanged messages in June 2017. Burrobert (talk) 07:21, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

¯\_(⊙︿⊙)_/¯ Burrobert (talk) 13:19, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I guess that's fine - @Valjean any thoughts? Andre🚐 16:38, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok I'll wait a few minutes to see if Valjean has any thoughts. Burrobert (talk) 04:35, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Burrobert I think theres a mistake in the edit [4] Assange told the Washington Post that he had not met with Stone in the northern Spring of 2016

Is northern spring a mistake or is it something I dont know? Softlemonades (talk) 13:25, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

The Washingpost source says "Through his attorney, Assange — who has been living in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London since 2012 — told The Post in January that he did not meet Stone in spring 2016". I added the word "northern" to distinguish it from the southern Spring which occurs at a different time of year. If you can think of a better way of wording this, feel free to change the wording. Burrobert (talk) 13:29, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Stone and Assange - redux

• "acknowledged", "pointed to": these are words to watch - see MOS:SAID: "Said, stated, described, wrote, commented, and according to are almost always neutral and accurate".
• "deny" is a word to watch - see wp:Words_to_watch
• First change: "two sources close to Stone, former Trump aide Sam Nunberg and a person speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged to The Washington Post that Stone had established contact with WikiLeaks owner Julian Assange" --> "two sources close to Stone, former Trump aide Sam Nunberg and a person speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Washington Post that Stone had claimed to have made contact with Julian Assange".

This change was explained in the earlier section. The source says "one of two Stone associates who say Stone claimed to have had contact with Assange in 2016".

• Second change: "According to Nunberg, who claimed he spoke to the paper after being asked to do so by Special Counsel Robert Mueller" -—> "According to Nunberg, Special Counsel Robert Mueller had asked him to recount Stone's description of the telephone call with Assange".

Compare this with the source, which says "Sam Nunberg, said in an interview Monday that Stone told him that he had met with Assange — a conversation Nunberg said investigators for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III recently asked him to describe". Nunberg isn’t saying Mueller told him to talk to the Washingppost. Mueller was asking Nunberg to tell him (Mueller) about the conversation. The source later says "Nunberg told The Post that the questions he was asked by Mueller’s investigators indicated to him that the special counsel is examining statements Stone has made publicly about WikiLeaks".

• Third change: "Stone joked to him that he had taken a trip to London to personally meet with Assange, but declined to do so, had only wanted to have telephone conversations to remain undetected and did not have advance notice of the leaked emails” —> "Stone said Nunberg had called him and asked about his plans for the weekend and Stone had replied he was travelling to London to visit Assange as "a throwaway line to get [Nunberg] off the phone" “.

The original text is difficult to understand and is wrong in a number of ways here. I can't see the source for the phrase "but declined to do so, had only wanted to have telephone conversations to remain undetected". In the conversation, Stone does not say "he had taken a trip to London”. He says “he was travelling to London to visit Assange”. The fictitious trip was taking place in the future, not the past. Secondly, Nunberg does not say Stone joked to him. In fact Nunberg says “he did not take the comment as a joke”. It is Stone who describes the statement as "a joke, a throwaway line to get him off the phone".

Burrobert (talk) 04:31, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

why is this in a second topic? Softlemonades (talk) 04:33, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I made two separate edits that were reverted. I have created a separate topic for each edit. There is some overlap in the subject. Burrobert (talk) 04:38, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I have created a separate topic for each edit ok thank you for explaining, i had trouble understanding Softlemonades (talk) 04:42, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

This talk section relates to this edit [5] Burrobert (talk) 04:52, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

@Andrevan: Burrobert (talk) 04:59, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

There's really no reason to deal with these 2 edits in 2 separate sections. So why don't we shorten this WP:TEXTWALL into a single thread. Feel free to redact or combine your own posts. Andre🚐 05:13, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

you can remove my replies if you combine threads Softlemonades (talk) 05:34, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I think it will become unwieldy if we change things now. Why not deal with the first reverted edit above, then deal with this one. Burrobert (talk) 06:03, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

It's already unwieldy now. Andre🚐 06:17, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I have changed the lead in accordance with the discussion in the section "Stone and Assange". What should we do about the suggestions mentioned above in this section? Burrobert (talk) 12:56, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

There does not appear to be much interest in this. I am going to start slowly reintroducing the changes mentioned above. Please raise any concerns here. Burrobert (talk) 01:59, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Any concerns so far? Burrobert (talk) 02:10, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

The changes seem minor to me Andre🚐 02:31, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Correct. Thought it would be safer to start with the less controversial ones. More changes to come. Burrobert (talk) 02:42, 29 August 2023 (UTC)