Talk:David Horrobin

message: During the past two months this article has been subject to a sustained and systematic sequence of edits whose purpose has clearly been to present the subject in the worst possible light. The lead has been packed with the most negative spin on the life of the subject possible, as has much of the remainder of the article. Any positive aspects of the subjects life have either been systematically edited out, minimised, or else presented in a manner which is clearly intended to undermine their weight, or value. This editor has systematically undone any edits by any other editor which do not agree with the clearly negative agenda as set forth in their own words (the following quote taken from the Richmond obits section above): 
"The purportedly compromise suggestion is to add "balance" in the form of a misrepresented quote. That's not balance and it's not NPOV. There is already appropriate balance in the lead in that this same paragraph mentions the references to positive aspects of Horrobin's life, then mentions the controversy and the notable quote. As I've said before, the quote also represents a significant opinion about Horrobin, who engaged in illegal or quasi-illegal drug importing and marketing; hyped a pleasant-sounding drug with unsupported claims; refused to share research data per academic convention; engaged in legal means to silence his critics; and presided over a company brought down by fraud and drug licence withdrawals.
There's no need for mediation. I abhor having to revert again and again, but as I said before, I am not going to allow an agenda editor to introduce synthesis, information irrelevant to Horrobin and sources like letters to the editor. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 15:43, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The editor's comment "I abhor having to revert again and again" is a perfect- indeed perfect self-unconscious admission of an "owner" complex. This editor obviously considers that their opinion trumps those of any others, and in the process condescends to feel sorry that they are in some way forced to act, though obviously only in the vein of 'not allowing other editors (see the many edits above, but especially those which have been "archived"), as though this action were a hard patrician action upon the poor unknowledgable proletariat. The editor in question's language, motivations, and conduct, are all very much in question. With regard to the actual subject: there has been striking and repeated synthesis on the part of this seemingly agenda-driven editor (as it seems to me, at least, and apparently to others). This article is clearly unbalanced. and any reasonably detailed analysis via a search engine [ignoring this article] will bear this out.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.110.164 (talk) 04:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

text: I've reverted the drive-by tagging. In response to NC77's accusations, I expanded this article from a stub to a full biography, and in the process increased the number of reliable sources from about ten to (currently) 59. There is no question that Horrobin was a controversial figure, but all note of this was absent in the previous version of the article. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 15:06, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The tag reversion is absolutely clearly in violation of wikipedia policy, and represents very nicely an example of keepcalmandcarryon's clear sense of personal ownership of this article. There is obviously a dispute concerning the balance of this article. KC has done nothing whatever to address this, and has no right to revert the tag, but must wait until other editors have fairly examined the piece and the dispute is resolved!Noncarborundum77 (talk) 09:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  As to the ridiculous accusation of "drive by" editing, the involved and substantial editorial contributions I and others have made during this process were "weeded" by KC in an extraordinarily biased fashion, removing numerous reliable references in order to favour the extremely negative view of the subject which the article presently represents. KC has made it essentially impossible for any other editor to contribute to the piece in any substantive manner, in defense of the highly negative picture they clearly intend to maintain concerning the subject. The sources referenced in the article are used in a highly skewed manner, heavily biased towards negative content, which is included until the veritable pips squeak, largely from agenda-driven sources nakedly hostile to Horrobin. All significantly balancing material, even from these same sources, has been aggressively edited out. NC will, in their own words, "not allow" anyone else to make significant contributions to this article, and it remains non-encyclopedic, biased, and clearly agenda-driven. I fully expect NC will continue the pattern of behavior described above, violate wikipedia policy once again, and revert the tag once more. Let's just see.Noncarborundum77 (talk) 09:44, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seriously unbalanced article dominated by a single agenda editor.  

message: Comments and suggestions would be appreciated:
*Is a POV tag appropriate, or is this article appropriately rooted in WP:RS?
*To what extent was the previous version of the lead (compare and see section above) inappropriate, amateurish and unrefined, as a respected editor has suggested?
As background: I expanded this biography significantly beginning in September of this year (compare this older version with the current version) after noticing no mention was made of the various controversies defining the subject's life in RS. Several editors, mainly User:Beechnut and User:Noncarborundum77, have voiced dissatisfaction with my changes, which we have discussed extensively on the talk page. Although some of the counter changes they suggested have been incorporated, it's my opinion that some of their other edits (which I have reverted) have constituted synthesis, are not based on RS and in some cases seem to have involved personal, rather than verifiable, knowledge about the subject. To me, whether information about a subject is viewed as "positive" or "negative" is irrelevant: what's important is that verifiable information from reliable sources is used with due weight. However, other editors feel that my edits were excessively "negative" and have charged me with willful character assassination. (For the record, I didn't know the subject, don't know any of his family, didn't know anything about him before I first read this article in March.)
User:Eusebeus has partially reverted the lead as "completely unacceptable" per WP:LEDE and WP:SS, deleting a summary of what several of the sources would consider Horrobin's legally questionable activities in the 1980s and early 90s. Since these activities are reported by several sources and occupy a section of the biography, it seems to me they should be summarised in the lead. Thanks for your comments. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 22:59, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  RfC on appropriateness of lead and tone 

message: I am a retired editor (because of the treatment I received in trying to edit the David Horrobin page) but there is one piece of unfinished business.  In an earlier discussion I promised to take up with ISI why Horrobin was classified as a highly-cited scientist in the Agricultural Sciences section when he published virtually nothing in this field.  It took a while but I have a reply: 
:"As you correctly pointed out to us; Dr. Horrobin was indeed not Highly Cited in the Agricultural Sciences category on ISIHighlyCited.com.  Unfortunately Dr. Horrobin does not have enough cites to be Highly Cited in any other category on ISIHighlyCited.com."   
He has therefore been removed from the index.  This will, I am sure bring joy to certain editors, so I will leave it to them to make the necessary amendment to the article.  Before they crack open the champagne, however, they might like to know that the letter continued: 
:"Due to the nature of the error previously made with correctly assigning Dr. Horrobin's cites, we are carefully monitoring his cites and while he is not Highly Cited in the current dataset we expect that he will become Highly Cited in the next dataset which we will begin analyzing next year."
Beechnut (talk) 14:34, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for following up on this matter. Let's monitor the category as this develops. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 16:38, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Highly-Cited Scientist

message: I have edited the first reference to add an archived version of the page and reformatted it using the citation template.  I have noticed that at least one of the urls used by the references in this article is no longer active and this will only get worse with time unless we address it (see WP:linkrot).  I hope that this change will not prove contentious.  If no one objects, I will continue to update the references as we work through the article.  Everyone is of course welcome to help. Beechnut (talk) 12:23, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Linkrot

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thread_title:  External links modified