User talk:Thargor Orlando/ArchiveFebruary2013

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Roy Hoffman(n)

I'm sorry, but I disagree with your page move and dab page creation. See Talk:Roy_Hoffman_(writer) where I formally propose page moves. PamD 16:51, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

No apologies necessary, I'll reply over there. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:15, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi there

Hi there Thargor! I happen to notice that over time you have been removing/amending a number of citations on various articles, all of which were linked to the Media Matters web site. I'm sure you are making good faith edits to improve the project but on the surface it looks a bit funny. Would you mind taking a moment and just cluing me in? I'd really appreciate it and thanks again for all your good work on Wikipedia. Cheers! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 21:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Just working on improving referencing overall. We should probably be avoiding using blatantly partisan material overall (I plan to move to WND, Truthout, Newsmax, etc as time goes on, but there are only so many hours in the day) and much of the material that's using MMfA is just as easily referenced using other sources. Generally speaking, I'm not removing any citations, but merely changing the citations from blatantly partisan material to more neutral/reliable material. I'm, with extremely few exceptions, not touching stuff that's deliberately using MMfA as a reference (such as in Going Rogue as an example) at this point, and might not approach those otherwise, but since I started the project this week, it's been generally uncontroversial. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:59, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for your quick response! Yes, I know your intentions are good and I commend you for taking on a rather boring project for the good of the pedia, but I think it would be good to run this by a few other editors at some community forum since it involves your personal judgement. In some cases I've noticed you have revised the citation so that instead of linking to an article hosted at Media Matters, you linked to the same article at a city newspaper cite. I think that kind of change is useful but in some cases the citation has been degraded in terms of the information it provides, like this one. Would you mind if I brought this up for discussion at the NPOV noticeboard just to get some feedback from others? Otherwise it could come up later and perceived in a way that does not reflect well on your good intentions. What do you think? -- — Keithbob • Talk • 22:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

If you want to, I won't stop you, but it's not really personal judgement on this end but basic NPOV policy, which requires "good and unbiased research" as well as reliable sourcing guidelines. I would also suggest looking at my research when there was a dispute at the Thomas Sowell article, specially under "MMfA and consensus," as it seems clear judging by the discussions of it as a reliable source that no consensus in either direction exists. In the few places where it's been an issue so far, further discussion occurs. Again, up to you, but edits are obviously public for a reason. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:27, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Aloha. I skimmed through Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 39#Thomas Sowell & Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive 65#Media matters .2825th time_asked.29. In particular, I took note of Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 39#Reiterating the_consensus, in which it states:

* Acceptible Use MMfA is clearly an organization with a political slant. However, that does not mean that their opinion cannot be quoted in a Wikipedia article. Political-based articles routinely cite sources which have a political stance (e.g., NRA, PETA, NAACP). There have been at least 25 reliable source discussions about MMfA, and the general conclusion of the RS forums is that the organization cannot be used as a source of news, but that their opinion can be cited. The text cited above makes it clear that MMfA is a liberal organization, and that the comment in question is their opinion. The actual article comparing Obama's actions to Hitler's is referenced in Investor's Business Daily, which is a reliable source of news, and the paragraph also gives the opinion of two people supporting Sowell's publication of the article, thus ensuring the commentary is NPOV. Based on this, inclusion of MMfA is acceptible. (emphasis added) Debbie W. 03:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I am concerned about the wholesale & unilateral replacement or removal of Media Matters (MMfA) citations without discussion or consideration on the talk pages of articles. In many cases this action seems to subvert the very part of the article which the MMfA citation formerly supported. The generic Edit summary of " updating ref" should at least read "Replacing MMfA citation with a less biased source".

If I saw that your replacement of "blatantly partisan material" was across the political spectrum, I would be better assured, but right now it appears to be more of a vendetta against MMfA citations.

Peaceray (talk) 01:01, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I went with what I felt was the bigger problem, which I feel is the MMfA stuff. I do intend to go to WND, Newsmax, Newsbusters, etc in due time as well, and the best I can do is ask you to take my word for it at this point. Regarding what you've quoted, I point to two things: 1) that this was one opinion by someone now banned, and 2) that even she said "and the general conclusion of the RS forums is that the organization cannot be used as a source of news, but that their opinion can be cited." My removals have been almost completely based on them being used as a source for news, not of opinion. In fact, as I pointed out in some areas, I've left in and/or expanded its use as an opinion vehicle. Not every change requires discussion, and I'm more than happy to discuss any specific issues with specific changes at the relevant talk pages.. Thargor Orlando (talk) 02:13, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

This is now being discussed at ANI please join the discussion here.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:23, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Restoring MMfA citation in Liliuokalani: Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom

I am restoring MMfA citation in the Liliuokalani#Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom section. I do so for two reasons.

• It speaks directly to the text that states "The accuracy and impartiality of both the Blount and Morgan reports have been questioned by partisans on both sides of the historical debate over the events of 1893."
• The MMfA article itself contains reliable citations:
  • A link to the audio of the Rush Limbaugh segment in question.
  • A Wall Street Journal op-ed
  • 2005 Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act[
  • 1993 Apology Resolution
  • State of Hawaii information about Queen Liliuokalani
  • A historical document, the Blount report
  • A " A PBS report about 180 Marines that landed during the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani

In short, the MMfA article itself is well documented.

I also used the {{cite web}} format for the hawaiireporter.com/rush-limbaugh-sounds-off-on-akaka-bill/123 citation that you substituted, i.e.,

Limbaugh, Rush (2005-08-17). "Rush Limbaugh Sounds Off on Akaka Bill". HawaiiReporter. HI, USA: Malia Zimmerman & Jay McWilliams. Retrieved 2013-02-17.

Incidently, as a member of WikiProject Hawaii, I find HawaiiReporter highly biased, as I have had the occasion to read many of their articles after restoring them from {{deadlink}} status. Peaceray (talk) 01:01, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Let's take this specific one to the article talk. Thanks! Thargor Orlando (talk) 02:14, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

James Roosevelt, Jr.

OK, here's the deal. Any tagging of an article which has not been discussed beforehand and is not the result of a consensus discussion is a WP:Bold edit. That's fine, everyone is encouraged to be bold, but when a bold edit is Rreverted, that brings into effect the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle. According to BRD, after your Bold edit, and my Revert, you must Discuss the edit on the article talk page. You do not continue to revert the edit, the article stays in the state it was in before your edit, until a consensus is obtained on the talk page. So, the ball in is your court, please make a case on the article talk page for why the External links do not measure up to WP:EL. If you get a consensus for your decision, that'll be the end of it. In the meantime, however, do not continue to revert to restore your preferred version of the article, such activity can be construed as edit warring and can get you blocked from future editing. Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:18, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, "here's the deal": I didn't revert any of your edits. You're the one who's already reverted twice, now removing a legitimate tag without discussion. That's a problem. I'll be over at the talk page soon enough to discuss it further, but let's be certain you know what's actually going on. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:47, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

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Cite formatting in MMfA replacement activity

I don't have a problem in general with your MMfA replacement campaign (although there will be some cases where retaining MMfA is advisable), but I do have a concern with how you are formatting the replacement cites. For example, in this edit to Joe Biden presidential campaign, 1988, you replaced a {{cite news}} template, which is commonly used in many articles, with hand-done cites that were substandard in their formatting in that they did not put the newspaper story in quotes and did not include the reporters' names who authored the story. With a small amount of additional effort, you could have done it like I revised it with this edit. Especially in articles that are at a GA or higher level, like this one is, it's important to maintain a standard appearance in the references.

You added similar substandard formatted cites with this edit to Joe Biden. Moreover, you combined a MMfA replacement edit with another change that removed material wholesale that was not cited to MMfA at all. These should have been two separate edits, with the second one given a much better explanation of why you think the NYT cite did not support the material in question (in fact it does, and I've restored it).

Finally, this edit to the same article under the explanation "fixing ref" actually made it worse, since you undid a WP:NAMEDREFS usage for no reason. (The odd name "autogenerated1" was introduced by a bot, but is no different than "nyt010203" or any other such name in a <ref> tag.) Wasted Time R (talk) 13:57, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't use the {{cite news}} templates because they're incredibly difficult to work with and often provide a lot of junk in the editing window that is not of use. If other people feel the need to convert, that's fine, I won't stop them and I welcome them to do so. Regarding the second edit, I am not required to do multiple edits for anything specific, but in that case I'm seeing where I made the error there and I apologize for that. On the third, namedrefs are good when something is being used repeatedly. In this instance, the one I replaced was because that ref was now gone, and the new one was referencing something else entirely. As you see in cite 72, it needed to be adjusted based on that: to keep it in place would have meant an incorrect reference citing that area and so on. I again apologize for the inadvertent confusion on the second point. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:05, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

The general etiquette practice is to adopt whatever citation mechanism the article is already using, and this is especially important for GA or FA articles, where previous editors have put in a lot of tedious effort to make the article look polished. Requiring those editors to clean up after your changes will not win you any barnstars :-) So regardless of your personal feelings towards {{cite news}}, if the rest of the article is using it, you should too. For articles that you create, or where you become the primary steward, you are free to use whatever style you like. And of course many articles have no steward and already contain a mishmash of citation styles, and in that case you can use your preference too. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

If that's the general practice, it's honestly not what I've been seeing. I say this not to be difficult or condescending, I promise, it's just not what I've seen over the years. I'll do my best to pay better attention to it where there's significant consistency, however. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:33, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

And here's another problematic edit of yours: this one to Senate career of John McCain, 2001–present. Besides the formatting issue (with the {{cite news}} that you don't like, you could use the "archiveurl" and "archivedate" parameters to indicate the archiving), you only replaced one of the two McCain-on-Hardball quotes that the MMfA article refers to (you replaced March 12, but not March 24). Yes, the MMfA piece only gives a link to the first one, but I assure you that the second one can be found too. The bottom line is, if you're going to go on a replacement campaign like this, which as you can see has already raised a fair amount of concern, you've got to be a little more careful. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:25, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually, in this case, I didn't touch the article text at all. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:33, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

True, but part of the article text ("... and immediately after ...") is now unsupported by the citation given in the article, whereas before your change it was. Yes, there are non-MMfA sources that can support that part too - this Washington Times piece has the quote you need - but why should I be forced to dig these things up, just because you have a hang-up about MMfA? Wasted Time R (talk) 14:54, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I have a hang-up about many bad sources, MMfA just happens to be the first one. I fully would expect a number of people to be rushing over here if I went with WND first instead. With that said, I'm happy to add the second reference as well if you feel it improves the situation, and I have done so. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, but you are making it sound like adding the second ref was optional and something that I just happened to feel was necessary, and that isn't so. If the text makes two claims and the old MMfA cite references two different news sources to support those two claims, then you've got to replace the MMfA cite with both other news sources, not just one. And another aspect to this: in the past I've used MMfA as a 'short-hand' cite where it was encompassing three or four or more regular news sources, and if you replace the MMfA you've got to replace it with all three or four or more, because that was the amount of weight behind an assertion I was trying to show. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:20, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

That's fine, I'm not arguing the point. If you feel I missed a key reference, I'm happy to add it in and I've done so. Not an issue at all for me. If we need four references to cover what MMfA is covering, we should do so; I've argued as such elsewhere. We're on the same side of that point. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:25, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

This is now being discussed at ANI please join the discussion here.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:21, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

You are the topic of discussion at ANI regarding the replacement of MMfA citations

Hi Thargor, I think that your MMfA campaign is a good faith effort to improve the project but concern has been expressed by at least three editors (Peaceray, WastedTimeR and myself) here so I thought it best to bring the issue to ANI for an open discussion. In this way hopefully everyone can air their views and their concerns and you can get see clear way forward without running the risk of being accused later on of disruptive editing. Thank you for your willingness to discuss the matter in civil way. Best wishes, -- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:21, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Not a problem that you've raised it for discussion there (although I don't know what administrative issue this is causing), but your positioning of this as "systemic," claiming refs are "malformed and incomplete," considering it "covert," and accusing me of "degrading" the sources is not accurate, and I'd appreciate a good faith correction on your part. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:36, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Replacing Media Matters and edit summaries

I reverted this change was not a simple update of the ref. You changed the ref completely, from a linked article that itself contained a number of links to a ref that only said Kudlow and Company, CNBC. May 24, 2006. I can't find that Kudlow said anything about WW III on that day, so the ref appears to be misleading and at best incomplete. Anyway, replacing one ref from an organization with a political slat with a lower-quality on from a source with the opposite political slant doesn't improve the article. I've reverted that change and restored the removed ref in Barbara Boxer. Please use edit summaries that describe your edit, please seek out neutral sources and please add references that include information that make the information possible to find, such as links to the proper place on the web site. Sjö (talk) 08:33, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

It's funny that you're asking me to find neutral sources when you've replaced good sources (and yes, the edit was good) with a partisan one. We can discuss further on the talk page of the article. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:57, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Courtesy notice

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. KillerChihuahua 18:10, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

How'd I get dragged into this further? Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Answered on ANI, but it is because of this edit. KillerChihuahua 18:23, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, replied there. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:25, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. CartoonDiablo (talk) 03:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

3RR

You are getting close to violating 3RR, do not edit war and especially do not edit war in an attempt to lock the page into your preferred version. CartoonDiablo (talk) 13:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Be careful, 2 is not 3. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

single-payer

I hope your proud of your behavior, you willingly got edited against consensus just in the nick of time to get the page protected for the wrong one. There is no excuse for this kind of thing. 74.113.108.4 (talk) 17:16, 28 February 2013 (UTC)