Talk:John Kerry/Archive 10

message: New archive added 08.11.04 Rex071404 01:15, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

message: Rex, the following edit summary by you is one small example of your near-total misunderstanding of the Wikipedia process: “Link style Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is consistent with VVAW pointer to sub page method - do not change this link format again prior to full discussion - Thank you!”  I'm going to analyze this particular issue in more detail than it deserves, because I think it illustrates a larger point.
You do this over and over.  You feel free to make any changes you want, but anyone else who makes a change is a “vandal” if you don’t like the change and it was done “prior to full discussion”.  I have nothing against “full discussion”, but it seems that you don't think a discussion is finished until you've agreed -- which you almost never do.
This one tiny point about the basics of Wikipedia linking policy has taken up an absurd amount of time already, thanks to you.  Here’s the actual history.  I was the first to suggest the current framework, in this edit on the Talk page, in which I wrote in part:
:I'd support something along these lines: In the "Criticism" section, leave in the stuff through and including Hibbard's attack on Kerry. Then add: "Also criticizing Kerry are over 200 other Vietnam Era veterans who, in 2004, established the group known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth {SBVT). They have questioned Kerry's service record and his medals. Several people who were in the same unit with Kerry are part of SBVT, but all the members of Kerry's crew who are still living support his presidential bid." Then the question is whether the back-and-forth about their attacks should be incorporated into the SBVT article or separated in a separate article, that would be wikilinked in this passage. I'd favor the former because the SBVT article is short enough that it can reasonably accommodate the rest of what's now in the "Criticism" section. 
Mbecker and Wolfman agreed, and Gamaliel had previously endorsed a change along these lines, so that change was made.  You apparently weren’t online at the time, but there’s no rule that every proposed change has to wait 24 or 48 hours so that everyone can comment on it.  You were online sometime thereafter, when you made this revert (among others) to try to reinstate the plug (including cover photo) for the book attacking Kerry.  (I note in passing that your edit summary there – “I was the one who originally posted this .jpg here some time ago - this should not have been moved” – is one of many suggesting that you feel some sort of ownership over the article, especially over changes you make, such that no one else is allowed to change anything you’ve added.  Get it through your head, there is no such ownership on Wikipedia.)
Anyway, as to the link question, the immediate point is that you made multiple edits, including edits to this very section, without changing the SBVT link.  Wolfman and I had both followed normal Wiki style for links, and that’s how it appeared in the article.  It was only several hours later that you began the string of edits in which you repeatedly changed the normal Wiki style to one that suited you better, apparently because you really really liked that particular link and you wanted to urge readers to follow it.
I hope you see the point here.  You yourself changed the link format “prior to full discussion.”  In fact, no one else has agreed with you that there’s any reason to depart from normal linking style here.  Nevertheless, you insist that your preference must govern, trumping everyone else’s, pending “full discussion.”
The specific issue of setting up this one link incorrectly isn’t of any great intrinsic importance.  I’ve detailed it to try to make you see that the practical effect of your style is that you're demanding enormous special privileges.  If everyone acted the way you’ve been acting, the Wikipedia project would become utterly impossible.
The patient and sincere explanations you’ve gotten haven’t helped.  The multiple warnings you’ve gotten haven’t helped.  The 24-hour block you got hasn’t helped.  The Request for Comment hasn’t helped.  The Request for Mediation hasn’t helped.  The threat of a Request for Arbitration hasn’t helped.  The actual commencement of a Request for Arbitration hasn’t helped.  If we assume good faith, then we can only conclude that you’re temperamentally incapable of participating in a collaborative editing project.  From now on, I won't be able to waste any more of my time trying to teach you anything.  My further comments on your editing style will be given in the course of the Arbitration Committee proceeding instead of cluttering up this page.  JamesMLane 07:10, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Due to the fact that JML's comments in this section all refer to me and my efforts, not to a discussion aimed towards reaching editorial consensus about edits on John Kerry I ask the other editors here to take note that JML should have posted this section on my talk page, not here. If there is no objection after 48 hours, I would like to move this section there where it better belongs. Rex071404 15:20, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I object. These comments are about your behavior on this page, and thus belong here.  They also belong here because you've persistently refused to modify your behavior on this page, instead trying to deflect it by criticising others, as you are in this case by complaining not about the substance of JML's comments but the location of them.  Gamaliel 17:43, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to agree with Rex on this.  This is an article discussion page, not a user discussion page.  Only article content should be discussed here.  Regardless of any purported connections between articles and users, discussions should be kept as informationally close to their topic as possible.  The discussion in question belongs either on the appropriate user talk page, or the appropriate dispute resolution forum. Kevin Baas | talk 17:52, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)
I put the comment here for two reasons.  First, most of it is a very detailed analysis of one particular passage in the article, one where Rex has already made multiple edits and reverts to try to insert his POV enthusiasm for the SBVT attacks.  I don't see how he can demand "do not change this link format again prior to full discussion" and then object when someone engages in that "full discussion".  Second, to the extent the comment goes beyond the specific issue of the reference to SBVT, it was my thought that some people might see it here who wouldn't see it if it were on Rex's Talk page, and that any resulting discussion could be useful in improving how everyone approaches editing this highly controversial article.  Rex's response convinces me that the latter point was an exercise in foolish optimism on my part, which I will now abandon.
Accordingly, I'm going to extract the portion that's about the SBVT edit, and which responds to Rex's edit summary, and enter that much as a separate comment under "Link to SBVT sub-page" above.  After that, Rex, if you want to move the full comment to your Talk page, feel free.  Please recognize, however, that the dispute about the SBVT link is not an isolated incident.  It's part of your continuing pattern.  I don't want to take the time and the space to go into this much detail about each and every one of your comments or edit summaries that I disagree with.  I don't think the Talk page is enhanced when people endlessly repeat themselves.  Therefore, whether you move this specific text or not, please consider it to be implicit in many of my future comments here. JamesMLane 19:08, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text:  Thank you for acknowledging that your lenghty off-topic comments need to be moved so as to preserve the space on this page for what it's intended as - a scratch pad for us to use in an aim to reach consensus on the text which goes into John Kerry Rex071404 19:17, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Rex and Wikipedia

message: In regards to those who won't concede that Cameron Kerry did in fact engage in a break-in as reported by the New York Times here.
* Q: Are you suggesting that Cameron was arrested after not breaking into the building?
* Q: Are you suggesting that the charges were utterly groundless?
:: If so, ask yourself, why is that fact not in the NYT article?
:: Rex071404 18:50, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cameron Kerry - the crux of the matter (all editors, please read and reply to this) 

message: Most Americans understand that we were fighting Viet Cong and/or NVA soldiers during the Vietnam war. I have read very view books which use the term NLF. I think we will lose our American readers if we completely omit the term "Viet Cong". Rex071404 03:52, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  NLF vs. Viet Cong vs. NVA - Re: 172's recent edit 

message: In order to head off any edit / revert wars or other SNAFUs regarding the "Elliott Quotation", provided we make a clear pointer link which says "see < sub-page name > for a full discussion.", I would support moving all this text (see below) to a sub page. Moving this text, would make Kerry's tour of duty / injury section more concise and would prevent tarring Kerry's main page with yet more controversy. Here is text for proposed move; Rex071404 13:39, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion for new [[John Kerry]] sub-page