Talk:John Seigenthaler/Archive 4

message: Just to make sure everything is neutral in to regards to lambasting Wikipedia (which is happening) on the John Seigenthaler bio page please ad two articles from news,net just to balance the opinions out. This is a great project Jimmy that shouldn't go anywhere, but there are kinks needing ironing out. good night and good luck Jimmy. Briaboru 01:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Seigenthaler NPOV

message: If Seigenthaler was founding editorial director of USA today, then it would be of interest to know the events around the founding of USA Today and his role in it. Does anyone know?--BorisG 02:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: USA Today

message: It seems to me, that we should use neutral point of view, i.e. it should be written, that someone consider Seigenthaler, for example, living in USSR in 1972, but Seigenthaler himsel, sais that it is wrong. Dims 05:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If I considered him to be living on Saturnus at the time will the article not be written from a neutral point of view unless it addressed my claims? Just because someone makes some absurd and completely unfounded claim about someone doesn't mean we have to write about it. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 06:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Meh edit conflict. Very good point, Ævar. Dims, what if someone said on an article about you that you were a drug dealer in Indonesia? Would you not try to defend yourself and ask for the truth? NSLE (T+C+CVU) 06:03, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The Soviet Union claim is not just false, but an attempt to paint him as a Communist. It not an innocent mistake. __Nut-meg 06:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

text: If someone makes the assassination claims about Seigenthaler, and we can verify that, then they should be included in the article and cited—but only if we can judge those claims notable within the context of his biography. Wikipedia's notability standards are quite relaxed, of course; provided we can determine the claim has some currency among a significant number of people, that would suffice. On the other hand, if the claim is idiosyncratic, it shouldn't go in. I don't think we should be doing anything in particular just because Seigenthaler says we should. We should do what Wikipedia's policies tell us to do—but I'm in no position to determine what that is. Everyking 06:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

text: It has nothing to do with whether Seigenthaler is right, it has to do with whether claims about him are substantiated.  You talk about people having the right to know the truth -- how does making unsubstantiated claims give them the truth?  That was Seigenthaler's complaint, and it should be the complaint of any sensible person. -- 68.6.40.203 06:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How could we know if Seigenthaler is right? 

message: Is there a way to see a list of articles that exist, but have no links to them from elsewhere in Wikipedia?  If such a list were available, people would more easily be able to find articles that exist and possibly contain bogus information but are not likely to be stumbled upon by the average reader.
--Quokkapox 11:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes Quokkapox, such pages are called Orphan Pages. Look up the page to see a list of such pages by alphabetical order. And do add pages to the list if you know any :-). Jam2k 12:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See also Special:Lonelypages. And while we're on the subject, virtually everything in Special:Deadendpages could stand to have a cleanup tag slapped on it, too. --Aquillion 18:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pages with no internal incoming links 

message: * [saigenθa:ler]? [si:gnθa:ler], [zaigenta:ler] :-) --Sheynhertzגעשׁ״ך 13:14, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to pronounce? 

message: Details need to be added about the kidnapping.  His son was the target.
Lotsofissues 13:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Source? Varizer 21:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text: It's unprotected. Protecting admins should be sure to unprotect once Jimbo's radio interviews are over. They don't last for 18hours. -Splashtalk 13:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unlock 

message: The Times of London relied on this article for their article on the controversy: 
Lotsofissues 18:34, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good job, new article finally the source for a publication 

message: I wonder if we couldn't make such an article that Seigenthaler would be proud of and ask for some news authorities to publish it or at least make an apology on our behalf in some news. I suppose this would at least make people realise that what we do at WP is really important and that we are interested as this authoritative encyclopaedia stays one of the first sources refered to. Lincher 19:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Like I said before, we should set a goal to make it a featured article. Everyking 19:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm up for it. Gflores Talk 19:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Shouldn't the goal be to make every arcticle (eventually) feature quality?--146.7.33.199 20:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, of course. But this should be a much more immediate goal. Everyking 20:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I got an idea 

message: What do we need to do to get this article up to Featured Article status? Kaldari 19:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pushing towards FA 

message: Why the hell is the redirect page locked from vandalism but THE ACTUAL ARTICLE isn't? You idiots.
:It wouldn't be an issue if people like yourself didn't vandalise it...:  -- Francs2000  02:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I do have to agree-- the redirect page is protected but the main article is not.  It would make sense to lock the main article. -- Timothy Chen Allen 03:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lock the bloody article! 

message: "Afterwards the FBI appears to have collected rumors about Seigenthaler. ... He had previously promised to publish whatever the FBI gave him, and did so." Where is that published? Is it on the web? I didn't find anything searching at fbi.gov, even though they post some FOIA documents. GangofOne 06:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: FBI dossier

message: I think the Wikipedia staff is wrong in not allowing authors to respond to perceived libel.  Don't get me wrong: I heard Mr. Seigenthaler on CSPAN asked about the Northwoods document, and he mumbled a lot of things about disinformation.  Not knowing anything about him personally, this one detail suggests that he actively hushes up un-American acts in the highest levels of government, for the Northwoods document is not disinformation, but was released under the Freedom of Information Act, and is suggestive of the interpretation of 9/11 in the context of the PNAC's "new Pearl Harbor".  This being said, some people may have biographies with inaccurate information on them.  I wrote much of the article The Exodus.  My approach there was not to state the true version of events (as I understood it) to the exclusion of all others, but instead to summarize the major points of view, and their pros and cons.  If something is wrongly said about somebody in a biography, that person themselves should also be considered an expert witness on the subject, even if biased witnesses.  I think that defamatory content, especially that which is suspicious, but the government will not investigate it, must be protected, or else these concerns will go unvoiced.  That being said, not all conspiracy theories are right.  Thus, I strongly urge that the best opinions be brought to bear on any subject.  Thus, uninvestigated allegations should be protected, but also the person on whom the bio is about should be available.  At worst, there should be a link to the authors rebuttal on the main page.  Mr. Seigenthaler oddly suggests that the Internet's protections for free speech may be taken away if incorrect charges are not allowed to be rebutted.  At the same time, he runs this First Amendment center, as if he is for free speech.  Perhaps we should distrust the true motives of his foundation, but if the best charges and the best rebuttals are both available, then we get the best version of the facts from which to form our own opinions.  If he spins misinformation on rebutting his critics, then so let it be.  In a free intellectual environment, Mr. Seigenthaler should not fear the charges if he is allowed to rebut, and he is in the right, but also, the critics should be content to be able to voice their concerns and respond to his rebuttal, and the real information will still get out.  Identifying all sources for Wikipedia information may chill some contributions.  The ultimate success of Wikipedia I think will be in conflict resolution.  I was very concerned my article on the Exodus would get hacked up by people maintaining fringe theories, so I tried to provide headings for them to air their points of view, and such counter arguments as seemed telling from a neutral (although scientifically-minded) point of view.  For some articles, I anticipate people with limited perspectives hacking up each other's articles.  The Wikipedia staff will need the good education and thoughtful editing to try to preserve the best points of view of ALL sides, and only then will some of the disinformation that has been the mainstay of the news media be cleared up.  True patriots should celebrate the distilling of the best points of view, and placing in some sort of perspective.  I'm not even sure that saying "what a fag" is constructive, without at presenting compelling evidence that he's at least some sort of intelligence community wonk, etc.  It's an ad homonym attack, "against the man", and currently, everybody loses, since the charges that he conspired in the assassination of Robert Kennedy are not there, not giving us any basis for the statement "what a fag", nor are any rebuttals present.  Only open information standards can save us from massive misinformation campaigns underway throughout the U.S. and the world.  To mute the charges, if they seem to be at all meritorious, is to limit what we can say about potentially true conspiracies.  There are too few avenues for this already.  To mute the rebuttal, I suggest, also sets a bad precedent.  If they want to limit the free speech of people through Congress, when a plurality of views is being presented, would only underscore what some conspiracy theorists have been claiming already.  It would be the action of a dictatorship.  Don't limit our conspiracy theory ideas, and don't give Congress the excuse.  Even a conspiracy theory that has essentially no merit should be mentioned, with its counterargument, so that people don't walk around with the wrong idea of the subject.  I did it in my article, and I expect no less out of the Internet community, one of the last bastions of the truly free flow of ideas left.  Note how except for CSPAN, television doesn't allow ordinary people to give their opinions on the air without being highly vetted.  Why is this?  Are they afraid somebody will mention the many evidences of an inside job on 9/11?  If so, why are they afraid?  A truly free press should allow these concerns to be voiced and refuted.  That is not what we have on TV.  The news services no longer serve us, and the politicians no longer serve us.  To allow public pressure to force a removal of the claims against Mr. Seigenthaler only begs the path of making Wikipedia no more informative than the TV news media - especially if they might even be thought to have any merit.  To not allow him to respond means the conservatives can point and claim yet another phony liberal conspiracy, as they are so wont to do.  To allow the free flow of information may yet save us, and anybody who says otherwise is un-American.  If all points of view get a fair airing, only the guilty need fear the truth.
--ThaThinker 23:24, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  On authors responding to their biographies 

message: All -- I saw Seigenthaler's interview on CSPAN this morning.  He said, among other things, that the current biography still contains two "harmless" errors -- one, he's credited with writing a book that was actually written by his son (not specified which).  He also said the information about the bomb threat in Nashville was directed at his son, not at him. "I think they probably picked it up from Editor and Publisher, which was wrong. But they [the magazine] corrected it."  I'm not sure which book is incorrect, but I'll remove the information about the Nashville bomb threat etc. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 00:52, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: According to amazon.com, Nashville: City of Note is by "John M. Seigenthaler" so I've moved that book to his son's article. Gamaliel 01:16, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  CSPAN 

message: Good article in the New York Times today about this.
The formerly-anonymous Wikipedia editor has voluntarily come forward, confessed and aplogized to Seigenthaler,
and explained that he did it as a prank, not realizing that anyone took Wikipedia seriously.
(He's also resigned from his job, fearing that his employer was taking heat as the holder of the IP address from which the edits were made, after inquiries from none other than Daniel Brandt.)
Steve Summit (talk) 16:06, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it was really classy the way Seigenthaler handled things after the guy apologized.  The article says they talked for a while and he urged the guy's boss to hire him again.  So while I think the whole Wikipedia dissing was a not nice, I think he's a pretty cool dude.  Different generation, but still cool.  End pointless rant.  --Foofy 18:46, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I wish that he'd been like this with Jimbo. From what I understand, he asked Jimbo to remove the material, which Jimbo did, and then a month later he wrote his opinion piece. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I am miffed at the seriousness of the action.
--60.254.104.18 18:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New York Times article today (Dec. 11) 

message: I ATTEMPTED TO ADD A LINK TO TODAY'S NY TIMES ARTICLE
AND SOME WIKI QUR HAS BLOCKED THE PAGE
WAY TO GO JOSEY WALES
ARTICLE IN YESTERDAY'S NY TIMES
A Little Sleuthing Unmasks Writer of Wikipedia Prank 
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: December 11, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/business/media/11web.html?ex=1134968400&en=249e193bdbec0699&ei=5059&partner=AOL
(Unsigned comment made by User:205.188.116.198)
:As far as I know, the article is protected due to incessant vandalism to the article brought about by its noteriety.  I'm sure that the link you passed on will be added as soon as the Admins unprotect the page, once the situation is more stable. --Vortex 20:49, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree - it isn't right to encourage vandals to vandalise other wikis, even if it is a parody one.  x42bn6 Talk 02:41, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: ADDITION 12 12 05

message: Wikipedia is fine, so long as you realize that it's information is vetted in exactly the same way a barroom argument is: he is right who can shout loudest and longest.
This is the method referred to by scholars as the 'hard way'.
Frankly what I find missing from responses to Mr. Siegenthaler's discomfit, but implicit IN his expressions of his frustration, is this: who the aich-eee-double wants to spend his time (let alone his friends' time!) to watch for articles about him and change them back to what is correct!!!
Few of us really understand the culture of Wikipedia, but taking the barroom argument model --- on steroids --- as a start might get us at least half way there. 
Wikipedia may be the rock of the future, but it needs to be taken with a boulder of salt. 
Those who find themselves maligned, methinks, have every reason to be uneasy. I wish I could think of a reasonable solution, but relying on the system itself as it stands looks to me to be woefully inadequate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lkrndu (talk • contribs) 11:26, 13 December 2005.
*Reminder: This talk page is for editorial collaboration on this article. To discuss Wikipedia or Wikipedia's policies, please see the Village Pump. --Dystopos 22:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsigned comment 

message: This is a good thing for Wikipedia. It shows what can happen if there is not enough care taken. We should respect the people who we write articles about. I think that John Seigenthaler has been very reasonable indeed, and this should be pointed out in the article. He seems a thoroughly decent chap. I wonder how many people would be as reasonable, if they were confronted with such outrageous mistruths in a widely read Encyclopedia? Very hurt, I imagine. I would be anyway. Wallie 20:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you ask me, it's just ordinary vandalism. Wikipedia sees this all the time, the only difference is that this wasn't noticed immediately. I really don't know why the media blames the entirety of Wikipedia and Jimbo Wales. If someone puts grafitti on the side of a building, is the building and/or its owner held responsible or blamed? No! Why is it any different here? --64.9.10.166 19:46, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not. A building owner will permanently remove that vandalism, so did we. - Ta bu shi da yu 21:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why is everyone getting so upset?

message: I am not so sure it's such a great thing. It was nonetheless a thing that was probably going to happen. Mr. Seigenthaler's attitude and actions I think are reprehensible and ill-formed (and probably snobbish, if not boorish). 
Seigenthaler has the responsibility to learn about his own name and how it is being applied and used...as any celebrity does on the Internet and the world-at-large. Besides, if there is an error whether small or large, he can correct it on wikipedia. Everyone fails to understand that logic. And then fails again by exploiting the magnitude of the error: A small error is no less an error. The attention-starved media (and apparently Seigenthaler as well) is just looking for another line to run. 
It is simple: Mr. Seigenthaler needs to take responsibility: It goes with the territory of being well known: Any famous, influential, celebrity person should be aware that they are game for mischief.    
I hope wikipedia management won't act like sheep on this and I hope that this "story" about Seigenthaler has NO EFFECT on wikipedia. Since Google News, I have had the ability to compare dozens of news articles from various papers and have noticed massive discrepancies in facts, errors and such that never get vetted: Therein is the MUCH greater crime.
::::Could the author of the above be identified, please? Michael Hardy 21:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that Siegenthaler is not blameless in this matter.  His horribly unjust attack on his strongest natural allies, the rank-and-file Wikipedians, weakens his position. Michael Hardy 16:33, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that Mr. Siegenthaler's intention is to attack "rank-and-file Wikipedians". He just doubts the credibility of the process as it was when the offending text was entered. I also hope, like the above writer, that Wikipedia stays on the correct path, ie, doesn't hamper the contributors too much. As for celebrities being "game for mischief" on the internet, I sure hope that this won't happen too much on Wikipedia, as we are not just the internet, but constructing a responsible encyclopedia. It was be a pity if some mischosen words undid all the good work and also the reputation of Wikipedia. Wallie 21:07, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To clarify: My reference to his unjust attack was to the words "populated by vandals and poison-pen intellects" in USA Today. Michael Hardy 21:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Seigenthaler's responsibility

message: This article originally used "logical quoting" per the Wikipedia Manual of Style. It was changed by Neutrality to "American quoting" under the rationale that an American bio should use American quoting. The problem is that the featured article criteria (which I would like to shoot for) says that articles should "comply with the standards set out in the style manual." The style manual clearly specifies logical quoting for all articles regardless of subject. I have discussed the matter on Neutrality's talk page, but he maintains that his edit is correct. He has declined to discuss the matter further, so I would like to get input from other editors rather than engaging in an edit war over such a trivial matter. For an overview of the difference between the two quoting styles, see American and British English differences#Punctuation. My apologies to everyone for bringing up such a trivial matter. Feel free to berate me for being too anal retentive if necessary. Kaldari 21:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I prefer "logical quoting" myself, despite being American and having no liking for some of the other British things like putting an extra "u" in "color".  I think the logical format is what comes naturally to "computer geeks" used to programming languages where it's essential to distinguish what's within a quoted block from what isn't. *Dan T.* 22:59, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not a "British thing". When people learn English as a foreign langauge, colour is spelt with a "u". Most people other than Americans spell colour correctly. Wallie 13:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotation style 

message: *A biographical article is no place to publish editorials, criticisms, counter-criticisms or endless Wiki-cruft about the recent incident involving this page. There's a Wikipedia:Village pump for that. You can start a blog. You can write a book. You can contribute to John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy (if it's not deleted). Let's stick to the task of giving Wikipedia a fantastic, neutral, balanced, complete biographical article with documented sources. --Dystopos 00:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia: The Childish Encyclopedia

message: ...a hard ban against all those creating vandalism hinting to the Seigenthaler incident, or an attempt to confuse information by causing a similar incident.εγκυκλοπαίδεια*  (talk) 01:04, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I propose we treat it about the same as regular vandalism. Treating it as "code red" is just giving the vandals more ammo. Seigenthaler has done his complaining, let's get out of panic mode now. Everyking 04:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see why vandals should be allowed to continue posting, especially if it could make Wiki vulnerable to lawsuits. As far as I'm concerned, one warning and they're banned would be acceptable policy. I traced one vandal across Wikipedia and saw months of unchecked vandalsim (deleting whole articles for fun, posting porn links, etc). It wasn't until this person vandalized the high profile article that they were banned. There needs to be a better process for reporting vandalism, especially if it is libelous. I just don't see how Wiki can retain any credibility otherwise.__nut-meg 02:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: I propose

message: What would people think of rephrasing the prominently displayed "anyone can edit!" notice so that it says something along the lines of "anyone who sincerely wishes to improve the encyclopedic nature of this project is welcome to edit".  That makes it clear very early that edits that would be considered vandalism are not what we want. Michael Hardy 00:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I think that it'd take severe retardation to not figure out from context that vandalism isn't what we want. Moreover, those who come here with the intent to deface would hardly be deterred by asking politely beforehand. It's a minor point, but inviting people to edit may actually stem vandalism  by making it clear that there's very little challenge, and by placing a certain amount of trust into all users. But these are my opinions and as such wrong.
The "severe retardation" that it would take not to figure that out may be just what those whom we do see vandalizing are suffering from. Michael Hardy 23:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Be less inviting to vandals?

message: I was researching a piece on the history of this and went to check the article history to be sure that I got my facts right but I couldn't find the earliest three versions. Where are they?
I did find some 255 other deleted versions, most of those in /temp and /temp2 subpages but they don't contain the historically interesting versions. These are the ones I'm after:
21:52, 29 May 2005 . . SNIyer12 
14:29, 26 May 2005 . . 65.81.97.208 
19:53, 15 September 2004 . . 65.170.144.130 
The first two are presumably the offensive text and the third, if Mr. Seignthaler is accurate, would be just a typo correction. I did find this one, which is possibly Mr. Seigenthaler using an anonymous edit to remove the offensive text and replacing it with his biography from the First Amendment Center some two weeks before Jimmy Wales became involved:
11:06, 23 September 2005 . . 69.172.115.157 (This is the correct bio. The previous entry was bogus.)
Jamesday 19:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There was talk of the offending revisions being entirely deleted from the page history. We can (apparently) do that when there's a grave reason. --Kizor 20:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where are the early versions? 

message: From their 1989 review of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture:
Along with literary historian Lewis Simpson's elegantly trenchant essays on the Civil War in literature, Ted Rosengarten's account of the Sharecropper's Union and Anne Goodwyn Jones' revelatory "Belles and Ladies," there is, for example, Nashville Tennesseean editor John Siegenthaler's promotional copy for his own newspaper and Robert Armour's chauvinistic and factually faulty entry on "Actors and Actresses."
*chuckles*
Lotsofissues 20:11, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newsday:Seigenthaler isn't a great encyclopedia writer