Talk:Vito Fossella

message: The article was primarily a commercial for Vito Fossella. Removed superlatives, inappropriate neutral language, and anything smacking of an overt political advertisement. 12:15, 5 December 2005 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.225.134.17 (talk • contribs) 
:out of curiosity, how can "neutral" language be inappropriate in an article on a politician? 153.104.16.114 06:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Commerical for Fossella? 

message: Deleting content that is properly sourced, without explaining the reasons for the deletion in this talk page, it is considered vandalism. ≈ jossi ≈  t • @ 21:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletion of content

message: It appears based on the Congressional ip address of edits eliminating information critical of Fossella and all references to his current opponent Steve Harrison that the congressman's staff is vandalizing this article by attempting to restore it to promotional status, which certainly is not NPV--24.168.108.195 22:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: User 24.168.108.195 has been blocked for inserting NPOV statements multiple times.  Reverts to this page was made by Wikipedia users who have no relationship to Congressman Fossella.  User 24.168.108.195 has been constantly monitoring this page for changes and continually engages in vandalism. --160.39.220.192 17:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Previous user continues to engage in pro-Fossella vandalism by calling any material critical of Fossella not NPV and reverting to version that he or she calls neutral, but in fact contains much material lifted from old Fossella websites, which certainly is not npv.--24.168.108.195 06:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: User 24.168.108.195 has repeatedly inserted anti-Fossella vandalism and has been blocked for altering this site multiple times. That user should be permanently banned from editing this page.KarlHungus21 01:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Countered KarlHungus21's pro-Fossella vandalism.  Yes it is vandalism when material critical of the subject including information from one of the country's largest circulation newspapers is removed leaving only material lifted from an old Fossella website, which certainly is not NPV. --24.168.108.195 07:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I am not pro-Fossella, and I am not personally invested in this race, as User:24.168.108.195 seems to be.  Other users in the past have reverted User:24.168.108.195's changes, but it looks like they have given up.  Unlike User:24.168.108.195, I have not engaged in vandalism.  Take a look at some of User:24.168.108.195's early edits of the Vito Fossella page and you will see what I am talking about. KarlHungus21 03:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I suggest that you both stop using the word "vandalism", in accordance with Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:Civility.  Thanks.  John Broughton 21:17, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Keep in mind that User:24.168.108.195 has been blocked from editing this page multiple times.  It is not misleading to characterize the activity that got that user blocked as vandalism.  It is not meant as a personal attack, just a reminder of the user's past actions.  My edits were only good faith attempts to fix some of User:24.168.108.195's repeated edits (that were not made in good faith).  I may have accidentally gone too far occasionally but that is only because User:24.168.108.195 has made so many malicious changes that it is hard to keep track of what is what. KarlHungus21 03:16, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To John Broughton re: good faith:  "This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary." KarlHungus21 03:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text: In addition, "Please note that continuing to insert negative, unsourced information is considered by wikipedia administrators to be VANDALISM. John Broughton 17:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits from Congressional IP address and by 24.168.108.195 and by KarlHungus21

message: Kuhl, Reynolds, and Peter King are all more conservative, Reynolds is among the most conservative members of the House, Kuhl votes the Republican party line 94% of the time on party unity votes, and King is hugely conservative.  22:07, 2 July 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.12.116.65 (talk • contribs) 
:I can't speak to Kuhl-since I'm not that familiar with his record in Congress-but I don't believe that you could accurately classify Peter King as more conservative than Vito Fossella. 
:He's certainly more outspoken, has achieved more notoriety-due in large part to his activism against racial preferences and the open borders policy embraced by more liberal Republicans, in addition to George W. Bush, as well as his position as chairman of the Homeland Security subcommittee in the House of Representatives-but in terms of their respective tenures in Congress I think that Fossella has a much better record on conservative issues. 
:His lifetime ACU rating is higher-although, I hestitate to use the ACU as a barometer of conservatism these days-he voted for three out of the four articles of impeachment brought against President Clinton, while King stood out in voting against all four, and-to the best of my knowledge-has never conspicuously associated himself with the socialist, anti-American terrorist organization known as the PIRA, unlike some Republican congressman in the same delegation, e.g. Benjamin Gilman, and King himself. 
:Ruthfulbarbarity 04:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conservative? 

message: Also, I'd like to add that the "record" section of this article is flagrantly violative of Wikipedia's NPOV policy.
In addition, a lot of the assumptions, e.g. that Steve Harrison will do better than Frank Barbaro-whose high vote totals can be attributed to his time representing Gravesend and other Bklyn. neighborhoods in the NY State Assembly-do not have any factual basis. 
Harrison's fund-raising has been laggard-to put it mildly-this race is not on the DCCC's radar, and George W. Bush won this district handily, which can not be said of any of the other congressional districts in the five boroughs.
The fact that the Brooklyn Papers-a hopelessly liberal, reflexively Dem. newspaper chain-are supporting Harrison is not noteworthy.
It would only be noteworthy if they weren't supporting the Dem. candidate.  
Ruthfulbarbarity 05:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: Why dose there seem to be information on the 2006 election and fossella's opponent mixed into every section of the entry? Should we separate it into a 2006 election sub-section to aviod NPOV confusion? MaxusDarte 18:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point.  I've fixed this (or at least made a start of it).  John Broughton 13:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Harrison Content?

message: * New comments go at the BOTTOM of a section, not the top.
* When adding a comment to a section, use indentation (colons work fine) to distinguish what you said from the person prior to you.
* If starting a new thread/conversation/topic, start a new section, at the BOTTOM.  
* When you add a comment, SIGN your name, and the date/time, using four tildes (clickable, just below Edit summary, if you don't want to type them.)
:: Thanks.  John Broughton 13:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How a talk page should be organized 

message: Wikipedia policy requires that negative information about a person MUST either be sourced or removed.  The following four items in the article need to have a source/citation added by someone, or I will remove them.  (I'll wait for a few days, to give people a chance.) John Broughton 15:50, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Negative information 

message: Fossella's bios indicate he was a lawyer before being elected to City Council (that is, for about a year). Can anyone provide some links to info (or add info to the article itself) about what kind of lawyer (his own firm, large law firm, clerk)?   Thanks.  John Broughton 16:15, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Career prior to being elected to City Council? 

message: Restored mention of Fossella franking charges, which were part of the Daily News late June expose that has been fleshed out in greater detail.  I find it interesting though that the editor included links to Fossella scandal articles, he purposley didn't include links to such articles if they mentioned Harrison including sories on the franking charge, which shared the front page with the picture of a Madam from a different story. The Daily News front page with Fossella and Elmo also made MSNBC's the "Most" that day because of the scantly clad Madam, not Fossella and Muppet. 24.168.108.195 06:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please keep in mind the Wikipedia:Assume good faith.  If you mean, by "the editor", me, then the reason that the stores on franking aren't in the article is that I hadn't gotten to them yet.  (You may have noticed that I did a LOT of edits.)  John Broughton 11:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Franking charges 

message: Restored preamble to section on Fossella being "Independent".  Without pre-amble section language states Fossella independence as factual.  Fossella's voting record is proof of his support for Bush's agenda. --24.168.108.195 17:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Once again, an assertion without a source. What voting record? This is starting to get tiresome, really.  John Broughton 20:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Inserted link to Fossella voting record.  Without my preamble this section leads readers to believe that Fossella is truly independent, the goal of him avoiding the word Republican, not NPV.  If the Washington Post is not an adequate source for you, I motion to remove this section.
--24.168.108.195 12:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, we're finally getting somewhere.  Thank you for inserting the link.  I have rewritten the sentence to make it NPOV.  I believe the revised sentence addresses your concern that someone (presumably, someone who has not read the first sections of the article, which make it clear that he IS a Republican) would mistakenly think he is independent (which would be odd, given the rarity of independents in the House).  John Broughton 12:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Independence and voting record 

message: A nunber of sections are now bleeding into the reference section including his legislative initiatives.--24.168.108.195 21:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, fixed.  If you see this again, you might want to fix it yourself.  See: Help:Footnotes.  (The problem was that the ending </ref> was missing the slash.) John Broughton 12:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Formatting Issues 

message: I gave the article a copyedit, looks pretty good now I think. Howard Cleeves 12:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyediting

message: Hi there. This article is a very interesting read, but I do not feel that it fits the good article criteria in the following categories:
*Number 2 from GA Criteria states: It is factually accurate and verifiable.
::This article's main source is A New York Times article by Jonathan P. Hicks, however I cannot access that article to verify the claims because it is a member's only part of the website. Therefore, the claims cannot be confirmed.
*Number 2 is violated here also: "In March 2005, the New York Post reported that Fossella had spent more than $20,000 of campaign funds to pay for restaurant meals during his 2004 re-election campaign. The funds paid for more than 100 meals at restaurants in Washington D.C., New York, and elsewhere. Members of Congress are allowed to bill their campaigns for meals if the dinners are for fund-raising or strategy sessions. Fossella spokesman Craig Donner said the purpose of the dinners complied with those guidelines." 
::The citation for this paragraph is a NY Post article in a members only area again.
*Number 2 from GA Criteria is also violated with this sentence: "Unlike most Republicans from New York City, Fossella is strongly conservative." 
::Citation?
*The article has two citation needed tags, which isn't so bad but isn't great either.
Again, it's an interesting read, but from a quick glane those are some problems that I found. Good luck. Happyme22 02:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good Article Candidate 

message: As some of you might have noticed there are a few edits of the committee and reference section. All I did was remove a comment about him being on the House Financial Services Committee and his being a Vice Chairman of a subcommittee, both of which he no longer is. I also added his new committee assignments. The other edits were attempts to attach appropriate citations. I have to review some of the mechanics of the site more before I do. In the end I gave up and removed the reference materials. If anyone wants to add the source for committees in the mean time I got the information from... http://www.house.gov/fossella/bio.htm
I realize this Rep. Fossella's House website, but I think we can agree its reliable as far as reporting his committee assignments.
LeRoi 19:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Committees 

message: I just deleted a few silly words. Even if one disagrees they were silly, they were opinionated without adding information or doing any benefit to the prose structure. BTW, I made the edit having forgotten to log in. Anyway. Somebody had written, "he is rated a conservative even though his ACU rating dropped from 87% to 84%." "Although"? "Although?" What a whacked out thing to say, jeez. 3 percent drop over two years, serious matetr. "Only" 84%, serious matter. (Smirk). Well, to objective about it, if you can find a pundit or genuinely important elected official to opine that those changes are dismaying to serious conservatives, then cite them. Hurmata (talk) 11:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Although his rating dropped to 84%"

message: A third opinion was requested for this article. Having looked at the debate as well as the other listings in the category in question, I will offer my take on the issue. Both sides have valid points, and the current category is not well named or applied. It seems like a category that should apply to articles about events is very often applied to biographies where those events are mentioned. That, however, is not an issue that will be solved here. The article and the sources seem to make clear that the affair was a result of the people involved having met through the performance of their duties within the political arena. Given the other articles in the category, its application to this article is not anything different from what I see as consensus use of the category. I do not believe that it gives any undue weight by its use here. It seems to be the standard application of the category. Also, the fact that the controversy sections of the article have more content than the resst of the article is a reflection of the sources available and used. If there is more to be added about the positive aspects of Mr. Fossella's career, it should be added to provide the balance. Sourced material should not be removed just for the sake of making the article appear to be more even-handed. I would suggest that the section about debates seems inconsequential and could be removed if editors believe it would better balance the article. That section seems more about the staff member's actions than those of the Congressman. Jim Miller (talk) 15:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the reality check.  I won't continue to argue for deletion of the category. David in DC (talk) 15:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Third opinion

message: I vote for removal of the gay sister comment. This really was not a notable event and the Daily News quoting an annonymous source seems like a witch hunt. I really don't care if it is left in, but if we are looking to trim this I would remove it or at least put it in another section. Arnabdas (talk) 17:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gay Sister Comment 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 11 external links on Vito Fossella. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071119191107/http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00000983&cycle=2006 to http://opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00000983&cycle=2006
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071212224937/http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00000983&cycle=2008 to http://opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?CID=N00000983&cycle=2008
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080726102333/http://www.observer.com/2008/democratic-clubs-meeting-fossella-race-0 to http://www.observer.com/2008/democratic-clubs-meeting-fossella-race-0
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090324234929/http://www.socialsecurity.org/sstw/sstw08-26-02.pdf to http://www.socialsecurity.org/sstw/sstw08-26-02.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060112001803/http://www.house.gov/fossella/soc_sec_calls.pdf to http://www.house.gov/fossella/soc_sec_calls.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060829104605/http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2004/Feb/11-736457.html to http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2004/Feb/11-736457.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070110130921/http://www.house.gov/fossella/Press/press2005/050713_london.html to http://www.house.gov/fossella/Press/press2005/050713_london.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070201004930/http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=267786 to http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=267786
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080405074927/http://www.vito2008.com/ to http://www.vito2008.com/
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110719093629/http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/NLN/images/vito_mugshot.jpg to http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/NLN/images/vito_mugshot.jpg
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080511182203/http://www.vinofossella.com/ to http://vinofossella.com/
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 16:41, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified