Talk:Michael A. Hoffman II

message: :Image:MichaelAHoffman.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 16:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:MichaelAHoffman.jpg

message: The only source I can find for this claim is a user post at Hoffmans blog. It's certainly not blocked countrywide as per  Great Firewall of China, and gives a false impression of censorship. I'm removing this statement until it can be proven.--78.86.25.66 (talk) 04:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blocked in the UK? 

message: This section is clearly a feigned attempt at objectivity from a single viewpoint and needs to be sufficiently edited or possibly entirely rewritten. The so called facts (claims) made here are not cited. Since Mr. Hoffman has copied all of the correspondence between himself and Amazon on his blog the author could have easily cited his blog as a first hand account ... unless however that evidence doesnt support the author of this sections claims. (----)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uptomyknees (talk • contribs) 23:23, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Censorship section off 

message: (1) Hoffman was born in Batavia, New York. He's 58 years old, which means he was born in 1951 — not 1954. (Source for place or birth is Gardell; sources for age are intelius.com and ussearch.com, which rely on credit card information — thus either reliable or an indication that the credit card holder has committed fraud.)
(2) In some fifteen years of dealing on and off with Hoffman, I've never been able to verify that he was ever employed by the AP. This doesn't mean that he wasn't; but the burden of proof lies with the claimant, i.e., Hoffman. Thus to call him a "journalist" when there is not yet proof of his ever being anything other than self-employed as one is taking things a bit far. Plus, journalists are supposed to be objective. On this point, if you self-publish a newsletter, as Hoffman does "Revisionist History," then you can call yourself managing editor, editor-in-chief, or Pope of the Edit, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. It doesn't actually make you a managing editor. I'd suggest changing this language to reflect this.
(3) Hoffman is half-Italian, as Gardell mentions and Hoffman himself has written (see his essays on John Gotti, e.g.). 
(4) This "New York bureau" of the AP is boilerplate Hoffman. I have only one source to go on, and that person is dead, unfortunately, but I was once told that Hoffman worked for an AP bureau in upstate New York. Hoffman typically writes this line of his bio to make it appear as if he worked at the AP headquarters in NYC. He did not.
(5) Like many Holocaust deniers, Hoffman misunderstands Orwell and the term "Newspeak." If he believes that the term "Holocaust" is Newspeak, then it ought to be inserted elsewhere that he doesn't know what he's talking about. Orwell's own essay on Newspeak indicates not that new words are coined, but rather that words are eliminated from vocabulary.
(5) The whole section on the Holocaust requires a refutation, which I'd be happy to write.
(6) The quote from Genovese is poorly sourced and cherry-picked to boot. Ella Kelly does not describe the social strata of the slave era, but rather of the postbellum South. This is typical denial "scholarship."
(7) Jim Goad quotes Hoffman as many times (ten) as he quotes Howard Zinn. In a book of over 250 pages, I don't see this as "heavily" citing Hoffman.
(8) The Gardell quote in "Criticism" is heavily cherry-picked. Gardell also indicates that Hoffman is an anti-Semite and identifies him as part of a white separatist counterculture (see Gardell, p. 98).
(9) The criticism section badly needs citations of people who have refuted Hoffman's writings on Judaism, e.g., Gil Student, David Maddison, and Harry Katz. Furthermore, as he is a Holocaust denier, plenty of quotes can be brought in to bear on this point. Again, I can provide these.
Kindly refrain from adding material to my post. It's rude.
Aemathisphd (talk) 13:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Corrections and Points to Consider 

message: Is the neutrality of this entry still disputed? If not, at the end of November I will remove the POV warning at the top of the entry. Spaceclerk 13:54, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: As there was no reply to his question for nearly a year, I have removed the NPOV banner. Goodwinsands (talk) 15:26, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV still disputed? 

message: This BLP is already categorized as :category:Critics of Judaism and :category:Holocaust deniers. Why does Galassi insist that it should be in :category:Antisemitism? That category is not intended for biographical articles. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 00:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This perfectly appropriate, as Holocaust Denial is a subset of Antisemitism.--Galassi (talk) 00:56, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You clearly do not understand the category system. It seems that you want to use it to brand this guy as a VBP (very bad person). That is not what categories are for. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 00:59, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Ever heard of WP:GOODFAITH?--Galassi (talk) 02:32, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed it. The article only needs to be in the subcat. Sean.hoyland - talk 09:54, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Absurd categorizations 

message: "Michael Anthony Hoffman II (born 1957) is an American Holocaust denier and conspiracy researcher/theorist."  What!?!?  I would love to know when Hoffman ever denied the Holocaust. 
: Virtually everything he's published on the topic denies it. Do you really want URLs? Because I can give you about a million. You need only ask.
Please, cite it.  Since no one will be able to, why is it here?  The only thing Hoffman has said is that he believes that the number said to have died is highly inflated, and any serious inquiry into the subject will lead the editors here to a similar conclusion, or at a minimum, leaves the question in very serious doubt.
: Yeah, no it won't. First of all, saying the number said to have died is "highly inflated" and saying there were no gas chambers, which Hoffman has said, is blatant, unadulterated Holocaust denial. You can try to float that bullshit someplace else, but not here. OK?
More Jews would have been killed than actually lived in Germany prior to the war, even before many fled the country. 
: What are you, twelve? Anyone who's bothered to look ever briefly at the topic knows that the vast majority of the Jews who were killed were citizens of Poland and the USSR.
However, putting that aside, the assertion alone that fewer than 6 million died does not make him a "holocaust denier," a handy label effective only at stifling honest discourse.  Why use a tired label with all kinds of baggage, as obtuse and nonspecific as it is, when you can simply describe what it is about mainstream historians' account that he disagrees with regarding the holocaust?  There is absolutely no reason to whitewash his disagreements via the term "Holocaust denier" other than to obfuscate his specific disagreement.  So, why is the article written so?  It certainly does not belong in an encylopedia.
: Yes, it does.
"Conspiracy theorist" is nearly as tired a phrase.  Just write what he theorizes and get on with it.  No need for baggage-laden terms, this isn't Fox News or MSNBC.  Is there an editor here who knows how an article is actually supposed to be phrased and written?  Or are we all thought police?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.193.192.14 (talk) 08:00, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Article is Substandard

message: The article previously stated:
:Hoffman was born to a Catholic family in 1957 in Geneva, New York. His father, the chief of physical therapy at Clifton Springs Hospital, was German-American. His mother, the owner of a hotel chain, was Italian-American. 
It was changed to:
:Hoffman was born in 1957 in Geneva, New York in the Finger Lakes region. His father, a hospital worker, was German-American. His mother, a secretary, was the daughter of Italian immigrants.
The information about being born to a Catholic family, his father's occupation and position, and his mother's occupation was removed, but all of it appears in Gardell (p.98 and 363). Gardell does not state that his father was a hospital worker or that his mother was secretary or the daughter or Italian immigrants, so Gardell can not be used to cite that material. I have reverted that change. Location (talk) 00:54, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Text must reflect the sources

message: The article previously stated:
:Hoffman was reportedly taught at an early age about William Morgan whose abduction and disappearance in 1826 resulted in the formation of the Anti-Masonic Party. He said that he learned from his maternal grandfather that elections in the United States were rigged by organized crime. From this, Hoffman was said to have deduced that "[n]othing is at seems to be", which in turn led to a "life long vocation, researching the subterranean workings of the occult cryptocracy's orchestration of American history". He worked on the projects of Willis Carto, David Irving, Tom Metzger, Ernst Zündel, and the Institute for Historical Review.
It was changed to:
:Prof. Abu-Jaber alerted Hoffman to the case of William Morgan whose abduction and disappearance in 1826 resulted in the formation of the Anti-Masonic Party. Gardell claims that Hoffman said he learned from his maternal grandfather that elections in the United States were rigged by organized crime. From this, Hoffman was said to have deduced that "[n]othing is at seems to be", which in turn led to a "life long vocation, researching the subterranean workings of the occult cryptocracy's orchestration of American history". He worked on the projects of Holocaust denier Willis Carto, German-born neo-Nazi Ernst Zündel, Lutheran Pastor and Holocaust denierhttp://www.ihr.org/jhr/v09/v09p321_Otten.html Herman OttenChristian News, Dec. 10, 2012, p. 5, alternative publisher Adam Parfrey,Apocalypse Culture Feral House, 1987] and the Institute for Historical Review, where he served as Assistant DirectorJournal of Historical Review, vol. 6, no. 4, Spring, 1986
The information about Irving and Metzger appear on page 98 of Gardell, so that material should remain in the article. Gardnell does not state that "Prof. Abu-Jaber alerted Hoffman to the case of William Morgan", so Gardnell cannot be used to cite that material. I am changing it back. Location (talk) 04:03, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Text must reflect the sources, part 2

message: A number of recent edits have been made, obviously attempting to downplay Hoffman's well-known views (namely antisemitism and holocaust denial) and violating NPOV. If anyone has the energy to systematically go through these, go for it. Blackmetalskinhead (talk) 08:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: Can we get some additional sources supporting the assertion that Hoffman is a Holocaust denier? I am concerned about calling anybody this without a great body of evidence.
I affirmed by checking that Michael Barkun certainly sad this about him in 2003, although I am having difficulty affirming the idea that the 2002 book by Robert Jan van Pelt does similarly. Perhaps this is due to preview limitations on google books, but I tagged as template:unreliable source? requesting that the quote from the book supporting it be clarified as the only mention I found of Hoffman on page xi is some strange comparison to parables.
Surely it should take more than two people's say-so to condemn someone as a denier. Ideally: do we have this in Hoffman's own words? A BLP subject self-describing as a denier would certainly settle things better than having others call them that.
If for example a BLP subject rejects the accusation of being a denier, shouldn't we note that, and be more particular about citing sources which do so?
Plus... it's 13 years after 2003, so even if someone had in the past been a denier, is it still correct a decade later to describe them that way? What if their rhetoric changed? Wouldn't "was a denier" be more accurate than "is a denier" when talking about older reviews? Ranze (talk) 03:24, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: BLP concern re denier label

message: I reverted several relatively recent edits today that returned old material long changed in reflection of points of view here. If there is an argument for changing the text previously agreed upon, please post it here. Aemathisphd (talk) 02:05, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Go ahead and report it. As noted, you are making significant changes to material of long standing on the page without checking the discussion here first. He quite simply is a Holocaust denier. He quite simply is not a scholar of anything.  11:55, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  He is now edit warring and will not submit to mediation. Aemathisphd (talk) 12:11, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

text: Thanks, brother. This is not the week for it (very busy), but I'm get around to it eventually and will try to keep your edits where appropriate. Aemathisphd (talk) 14:39, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  New edits undoing old changes  

message: A section with the title Khazar Myth contains two sentences.
The first sentence asserts that the subject is an advocate of this myth. 
The second sentence asserts that the subject engages in hyperbole and includes a quote.
There is a source cited at the end of the second sentence.
I once saw a suggestion in Wikipedia that references should clearly indicate which facts they are supporting. That suggestion is not policy, and sounds unworkable, but that doest mean in situations such as this, that there is not immediate clarity whether the source provided is covering all of the assertions in the preceding paragraph, or only some of them.
It looks to me like the source is providing evidence of the quote.
An attempt to search the book for the word Ashkenazi provided the response "no results found in this book for Ashkenazi". I can't imagine how someone would make the case "most Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from the Biblical patriarchs" without using the word "Ashkenazi", so I think it is reasonable to conclude that the reference was used to support the existence of the quote, but does not support the initial sentence.
I don't quibble with the assertion that the quote constitutes hyperbole, but if evidence of hyperbole qualifies for inclusion in a Wikipedia article, we are going to need bigger servers. In a more serious vein, the opening sentence appears to be the item of importance, and it is not supported. I think it makes little sense to remove the opening sentence and leave a section that essentially says the subject has engaged in hyperbole, so I think the best action is to remove the whole section.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:20, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Planned removal 

message: There is a section with the title "Irish slavery myth". Wikipedia has an article about the subject: Irish slaves myth.
This section discusses a book written by Hoffman. I examined a snippet of the Kindle version of the book which has "Irish slaves" in the table of contents, so while I did not read the book it seems reasonable to conclude that there is discussion of (alleged) Irish slaves. 
However, does the choice of "Irish slavery myth" as a section heading leave the impression that the book is primarily about Irish slaves? 
Does the use of the phrase  "white slavery"/Irish slaves myth leave the impression that the Irish slaves is another term for "white slavery"? I'm on the fence regarding my first question, but my understanding of the / in  "white slavery"/Irish slaves myth leave the impression that the two terms are being treated as, if not identical, very comparable.
I'd like to see some editing to provide some clarity. For example, it is demonstrably true that the book is not predominantly about Irish slaves, but more broadly about the concept of white slavery. It is also true that we often discuss a notion in a book, and there may be nothing wrong with discussing the notion without leaving the implication that the entire book is about that notion. It seems plausible that the point of the section heading was to say that the subsequent discussion is not a complete survey of the contents of the book, but a discussion of one aspect of the book.
I am a little more troubled by the  "white slavery"/Irish slaves myth construction. The Wikipedia article on the subject appears to conclude that the claim about the Irish is false, but that doesn't mean historians think there has never been any white slavery. The evidence is sufficient to say that the notion of Irish slaves is a myth, but that doesn't mean that the notion of white slavery is a myth. There must be a better way to write this section.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:04, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: After little bit of thought, my current plan is the most parsimonious – to simply remove "white slavery" that is, change "white slavery"/Irish slaves myth" to "Irish slaves myth". the existence of the/can be interpreted in multiple ways but in context it appears to leave the impression that the two terms are virtual synonyms. it doesn't make a lot of sense to suggest that the fact that white slavery existed should be equated to the specific myth regarding the Irish. I think the section reads better if the edit is made. S Philbrick(Talk) 19:04, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits possibly needed