Talk:Henry Louis Gates Jr.

message: That content was there before editor x arrived here. A white non-scholar by what authority to call someone a no. 1 Black scholar in the lede, yet the top African-American Scholars cannot critique this in the lede. So let me clarrify top African scholars in Gates fields see him as a Uncle Tom. but that doesnt suit the lede? but the praise of him does? The minute you want to praise someone as a No.1 Black scholar you are introducing a bias, to balance it it needs to be challenged if he is well known for not being so. How can a white person decide who is the no. 1 Black scholar? See other bios, Malcolm X, Farrakhan, and everyone else. If no critique is allowed then no priase. Either or but not praise without critique. 
Criticism and praise
Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone. Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints; the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation and section headings are broadly neutral. Beware of claims that rely on guilt by association, and look out for biased or malicious content.--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 15:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  The solution is acceptable --Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 18:40, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Lede bias critique and praise: Use the talk page 

message: Currently, the bibliography includes a list of films, and is followed by a separate Filmography section. The filmography goes roughly in reverse chronological order. Is there a convention here? Should these be two different sections? Yonar (talk) 09:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bibliography/filmography consolidation 

message: Should we say something about what Gates says about his own race?  I understand from this article (already quoted elsewhere in Wikipedia) that Gates was dissappointed to discover in his research that he is probably over 50% white caucasian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by IceDragon64 (talk • contribs) 00:14, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The article you point to is a paper presented at a conference.  It uses Duster, 2006, Deep Roots and Tangled Branches, Chronicle of Higher Education as its source, which discusses the "scientific imprecision on matters of identity and identification".  I think we need additional sources to include this as "fact". Viriditas (talk) 23:11, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Race 

message: Some time ago, I tagged this sentence with a  for Gates' critics and a  for the sentence as a whole. Revisiting the edit today I found that someone had provided a source, which is good, and had removed the  without expanding on it, which is less good (perhaps not the same person, I didn't check). Then I looked at the source provided, and it was a blog -- one published on the Sun website, but a blog nonetheless. It was written in tabloid style and featured street polling style comments from people who were pro-Gates on one hand and pro-Police on the other. These people were cited with first names and there is no indication of who any of them are or whether they are noteworthy or not.
Now in normal circumstances, despite finding the source weak, I probably would have let it pass. After all, it's obivously true that Gates' critics have called him that and worse, and a source is a source -- it's not like a Sun blogger is the same as a self-published tumblr account. But these are not normal circumstances: this a WP:BLP article of a high-profile person who attracts much love from his supporters and hate from his critics. To this end, it is imperative that we remain absolutely neutral and stick to the highest quality sources available -- and when they aren't available, we should err on the side of not including the information.
Having said all that, I did not actually remove the statement, I simply returned it to its previous, tagged version. I would like to see the structure of the statement changed, however. "Gates' critics" could be anyone -- he has many -- and is not a terribly specific or encylopedic way of attributing opinion. It's what we call a weasel word, and its use is not acceptable on WP. Instead, we should choose a specific and notable critic or critics who have called him a provocateur and a publicity hound, and provide proof (i.e. a source) that this point of view is widely held. That original  that someone deleted is absolutely relevant here and should not be removed.
Remember, this is the biography of a living person, and the standards for libel are not terribly high in the United States, where Wiki's servers reside. If we cannot source this statement to specific notable critics and establish that including the opinion would not violate WP:UNDUE, we should remove it, no matter how self-evident it may seem. Remember WP:TRUTH. Eniagrom (talk) 09:35, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed it.  It was a misuse of the source and added to the wrong topic altogether.  It doesn't belong here. Viriditas (talk) 06:39, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Great, thanks. That was my instinct as well but I didn't want to drive-by edit an article like this one. Eniagrom (talk) 09:46, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  No worries.  I could use your help cleaning up this article and getting it ready for GA status. Viriditas (talk) 23:41, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: My usefulness here would be limited, I fear -- I don't know much about him nor do I have the time to educate myself. Beyond simple copyediting and such I don't think I'd be much help. But if you have something specific let me know. Eniagrom (talk) 13:11, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gates's critics say he's a provocateur and publicity hound. 

message: Is anyone planning to Add info about the current controversy concerning Skip Gates. 
From a hacked Sony Email it was exposed that Gates purposely hid the history of Ben Affleck slave owning Ancestors.  In a Show claiming to show people's Roots, Affleck complained about the history of his slave owning ancestors being discovered, and gates emailed Sony for advice on the issue.  
In the end the history was covered up and no exposed in the show.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.49.233.224 (talk) 00:48, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hacked Sony Emails, Ben Affleck Slave Ancestor Cover up, and PBS Guidelines. 

message: Am the author of Political Palace Original Hebrews were black 174.251.128.14 (talk) 08:06, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Political Palace Original Hebrews were Black 

message: I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section using cite templates. Capitalization and punctuation follow standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, as much as Wikipedia templates allow it. ISBNs and other persistent identifiers, where available, are commented out, but still available for reference. This is a work in progress; feel free to continue. Sunwin1960 (talk) 04:22, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bibliography 

message: Dr Gates, You suggested Melissa McCarty’s ancestor must have felt out of place as a German Union soldier in Texas during early reconstruction during and after fter the Civil War.  We had German towns where only German was spoken.  Children first spoke English when they went to school.  It was the same for  Czechs and Poles. Simply passing on information. I do enjoy your show and wish I were famous so you could solve some of my brick walls for me. Best wishes. 
LeeAnn Dauphinot
 
Sa da 2600:1700:D52:220:D846:5880:5DE4:2DF3 (talk) 07:24, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Please note that this is the talk page of an article about this person. It's not a forum to contact this person or discuss their work outside an encyclopedic interest. It's most unlikely that Dr. Gates will read any messages here anyway, so you should probably instead contact the producers for the series in question (see the official websitefor more information). Regards SoWhy 07:47, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

text: Who are you talking to? 76.202.192.102 (talk) 21:16, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Germans in Texas