Talk:Darkness in El Dorado

message: This whole article manages to completely avoid even a hint at what terrible crimes the anthropologists were accused of - did they kill and eat the natives, violate the Prime Directive, sell uranium buttons, what?? Stan 18:53, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

message: Mt144216 points out that Dregeris a personal friend of Chagnon. I don't dispute that they are friends, but think we should strive towards a more even handed contextualization of this issue. From Dreger's piece: 
"I did not know any of the major players in this history when I began researching
it, but as is probably clear in this paper, what I found made me progressively
outraged, and also sympathetic to Chagnon, Neel, and their families. The Chagnon
and Neel families have been effusive in their thanks to me, and I believe at this point
Chagnon considers me a friend, and I would call him my friend, although we hardly
agree on everything."
I don't feel that Mt144216 does a good job of encompassing these facts---and what sounds more like a professional than personal friendship to me.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pengortm (talk • contribs) 13:29, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alice Dreger friends with Chagnon 

message: I don't know the process for the initiating this (I dug for a bit and it confused me) but you can see the article lacks a neutral point of view. I came here to find out what the book's arguments are and they simply aren't here--instead, it's replaced with what is a cherry-picked set of "rebutted" points. I thought I was missing something and several other people on the discussion page seem to have the same problem. I came to this article after the controversy at the American Anthropological Association and it's clear there's been some lopsided edits. I can't edit the article myself since I haven't read the book and if someone who has could provide encyclopdedic information about the book--without editorializing--I would be ecstatic. But this definitely needs to be picked out for a WP:NPOV problem. 216.15.36.38 (talk) 03:58, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is an article with an NPOV problem 

message: The article was missing what made the book so shocking; it was not the sexual allegations per se. It's who Chagnon is. He's the one who put the tribe on the anthropological map, making them famous. Making them possibly better protected than other, less celebrated Amazonian tribes.
So Chagnon is simultaneously their critic and their saviour, their defender.
So in that sense he's the last person you are expecting such allegations to concern. And he's accused of tampering with the Prime Directive for field work, to observe/study/comprehend/report, not to change or fuck up.
I have quickly added a sentence, but that should be done much better.
Varlaam (talk) 18:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The idea that Chagnon is "their saviour" is not a very common viewpoints from most anthropologists who consider him their main enemy who has provided distorted descriptions depictuing them as primitive savages and in that way actually motivating colonists to treat them violently. This view has been espused by Survival INternational, and by such prominent anthropologists as Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Marshall Sahlins and Elizabeth Povinelli - and this view of Chagnon as an enemy of the Yanomami does not rest on Tierneys accusations and indeed existed prior to the publication of his book.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:12, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chagnon 

message: The term "hoax" seems somewhat stronger than what critics appear to be saying. Is it fairer to assign it to Category:Controversies?Varlaam (talk) 07:41, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not a hoax, that implies that it was made with intent to deceive, I think most people consider the claims simply to be wildly exaggerated speculation.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:52, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hoax categorization 

message: I think this page should be making more use of secondary sources such as Borofsky 2005 . 86.130.63.47 (talk) 23:50, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that would be a very good idea.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:53, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, might be a good idea. Please either workshop suggested edits here or if you're confident in your contributions, go ahead and add them in directly and we'll work together collaboratively to improve as needed. A word of caution about Borofsky is that from my skims of it, it spends a lot of time letting individual actors in the controversy debate back and forth and thus might be a mixture of primary and secondary sources in the book. We will probably want to focus mainly on the more synthetic secondary source parts of the book for our purposes. --Pengortm (talk) 00:22, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sourcing 

message: Were added via a request on OTRS. I have no personal connection to those templates. Just doing it as a courtesy. SarahStierch (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Where can we find more details on the templates/requests? nothing seems to be coming up when I try searching WP:OTRS/N. Thanks. --Pengortm (talk) 00:29, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two templates just added 

message: The article is tagged for problems of neutrality and encyclopedic tone. I don't see any clear justification for this and think these tags should be removed. While the article could certainly be improved in a variety of ways, I don't see a big neutrality or tone problem. I'll wait awhile for discussion here before removing unilaterally. --Pengortm (talk) 00:18, 8 March 2015 (UTC
: Well, I disagree with your assessment, and with your revert of my recent edit. It is fundamentally against Wikipedia's approach to call something discredited as such. If author X says the book is discredited, using that term, we can report that, with a reference. Charles Matthews (talk) 18:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for bringing this up for discussion here. I took the 'discredited' terminology as a reasonable summary of the rest of the article (e.g. "later investigations by multiple independent organizations found Tierney's main allegations to be false and libelous"). There seems to be enough consensus in the literature that it seems look a good and accurate summary. I hope others can chime in and/or perhaps we can find a way to hash this out.Pengortm (talk) 21:58, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

text: My concern is well expressed by the first sentence at WP:SYNTH: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." I completely agree with the equation "discredited = reasonable summary". Most readers would too, I guess. But as far as I can see putting that conclusion in the lead is against the exclusion of original research. The second para of the lead is as far as we should go, in my view. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:39, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems like a misreading of WP:NOR to me. Particularly that same article states: "Research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing sources within the provisions of this and other content policies is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia. Best practice is to research the most reliable sources on the topic and summarize what they say in your own words..". So the fact that this seems like a reasonable summary to you and I and my reading of Wiki standards is that summarizing is a key aspect of wikipedia makes me think this should stay. As always, I hope you or others will chime in if I am misreading things. Pengortm (talk) 14:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

text: Collation differs from drawing inferences. If any synthesis at all is accepted, of any character, sure. But it isn't; and to me your version fairly clearly crosses the line. So, having discussed it, I'm going to revert to my version. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:46, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

text: Thanks for that: that is the issue as I see it. I have also asked at User talk:Sitush, but given the note on his user page, he may not respond quickly. Charles Matthews (talk) 15:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't include either "polemical" or "discredited" in the opening sentence. Neither are required as the lead goes on to explain the issues. It is reasonable for us to allow the reader to apply their own assessment based on the information provided. - Sitush (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality and un-encyclopedic tone notice removal? 

message: A third opinion was requested.  Is the question whether to use the word "discredited" versus the word "polemical" in the lede in the voice of Wikipedia?  If so, I say that "polemical" is the better word so as to be more encyclopedic.  The word "discredited" may reasonably be used in a quote, if someone says that scholars have discredited the book (which they have).  Robert McClenon (talk) 20:51, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that: that is the issue as I see it. I have also asked at User talk:Sitush, but given the note on his user page, he may not respond quickly. Charles Matthews (talk) 15:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't include either "polemical" or "discredited" in the opening sentence. Neither are required as the lead goes on to explain the issues. It is reasonable for us to allow the reader to apply their own assessment based on the information provided. - Sitush (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Third Opinion

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Darkness in El Dorado. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120921134914/http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/ucsbpreliminaryreport.pdf to http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/ucsbpreliminaryreport.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 21:12, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I just added a passage about Lizot and Good to the lede of the article. I did this since these are listed as major claims later on in the article. Are these actually major claims of the book? If so, I think things as is are fine. If not, we should probably remove from both the lede and major claims sections. I am leaning towards thinking these are not really major claims of the book, but hope others can weigh in before we delete. -Pengortm (talk) 15:14, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lizot and Good allegations major? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Darkness in El Dorado. 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/20150704095927/http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/05ref_eldorado.htm to http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/05ref_eldorado.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 23:55, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified